


The Pact

by Void_senpai



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Drama & Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Void_senpai/pseuds/Void_senpai
Summary: Childhood besties Bella & Jacob made a pact: If they were both single when they turned thirty, they would get married. Seventeen years later, Bella moves back to Forks after her life falls apart, and tries to rekindle her friendship with the one man who always had her back. Now a devilishly handsome and successful man, Jake will try to win her over from her ex one last time, and make good on The Pact.
Relationships: Jacob Black/Bella Swan
Comments: 29
Kudos: 130





	1. Weird

Charlie's cruiser wheezed as it climbed up an unusually steep hill, atop which sat the Weber house. She and Jessica had been talking about her thirteenth birthday party for weeks, enough so that I was actually hyped for it, which was a weird feeling. It sounded more grown up than the other parties I'd been to before; I was assured that there were no "activities" planned like when we were six, no pinatas or magicians or anything dumb like that. I was promised scary movies, a giant bounce house, and watching Jake kick everyone's butt at Dance Dance Revolution (his words, not mine.) He always kicked mine, which wasn't surprising since I had all the grace and coordination of a blind giraffe with vertigo, but I also knew that he always went easy on me.

The car came to a stop in front of their house, where our entire class was already assembled and running amok between the house and the yard.

"Alright you two," Dad said, twisting himself around to look at us in the back seat. "You both behave yourselves, you hear me? Be nice, make sure you thank Mrs. Weber before you leave, and _don't break anything._ "

We both nodded, but Jake was trying to stifle a smirk. Legend has it that at the last birthday party Jake went to, a boys-only affair, someone had instigated a nerf gun war that ended abruptly when he crashed the Newton's four-wheeler into the fence during an attempted drive-by. I couldn't really articulate it at the time, but I had the sneaking suspicion that I was doubling as his minder that afternoon.

"Good," he grunted. "Bella, Ms. Sarah is going to pick you both up, and then I'll come get you when I get off work, okay?"

"Is she staying for dinner?" asked Jake.

"Yep, that's what your mother told me."

"Fricken' sweet!"

"Watch it, kid," Dad warned. He was so weird about "language" back then. "Alright, go on. Have fun."

He shooed us out, and no sooner had the side door slammed shut than he flicked switch on his dashboard, blasting the lights and sirens on the car in front of my entire seventh grade class.

"See you little criminals later!" he shouted through the open window, enjoying a big belly laugh as he drove away. Jacob unsurprisingly found it just as funny as Dad did. I, on the other hand, was a new shade of pink and ready to bury myself alive, and the party hadn't even started yet. I groaned, but I didn't dare look to see how many of them were staring at me.

"C'mon, Bells. Let's go in."

"Are they laughing at me?"

"No, they're laughing at your dad, 'cause it was hilarious."

I wasn't budging. Ever since Lauren became friends with Tanya, nasty whispering about the other girls had become increasingly common, and I wanted to avoid being a target at all costs. He sighed, exasperated, but trying to be patient with me. I felt so lame. Jake was way too cool to be hanging out with me all the time. All the guys loved him, the king of the castle at Forks Middle.

"Look, nobody's laughing at you, and if they do, I'll punch 'em, okay?" He gave me a reassuring smile, and I could feel the heat in my cheeks starting to die down. I took a deep breath.

"...Okay."

"Cool. Now let's go find Angela and get some chips."

I didn't know how good I had it then. Even when we were little kids, he always stuck with me, though I liked to joke that I was the one stuck with him. Our friendship wasn't hard like it was with the girls. It was effortless. Sure, we bickered sometimes, and we once had a fight so bad that I wouldn't speak to him for two whole days, but deep down, I never had any doubts. He was there when we were barely old enough to string sentences together, and he would be there at the end of the world. No question.

Mrs. Weber greeted us warmly and took our gifts into the living room by the cake. Jake was polite as always, but it all went out the window when the cookies and pizza bagels appeared, and I watched in mild horror as the boys descended on the trays like a plague unto Egypt.

"Bella, you're here!" called Angela in her sing-songy voice with Jessica in tow.

"We just got here. Did I miss anything?"

"Mhmm," Jessica said, nodding enthusiastically. Her eyes kept darting over to the boys, who had just broken into hysterics over Mike's Kool-Aid Man belch. "Angela's gonna-"

"-Shhh!" Angela clapped her hand over Jess's mouth and grabbed me around the wrist. "Let's go to my room for a sec."

Looking behind me, I found Jake engrossed in what sounded like a dick-wagging contest about Halo. He was with his people. I should leave him be. I followed them down the hall and into her room, and she locked the door securely behind her, the Jesse McCartney poster on it sliding further out of place from the sudden force. Angela was giggling and bouncing on the bed like a Mexican jumping bean.

"She's gonna tell Eric she likes him," Jessica said in a loud whisper.

"What?" The whole concept was completely foreign to me. Telling a boy you liked him was serious business, not to mention being possibly the most embarrassing thing on the planet. I'd rather swim with piranhas.

"Yeah! I've liked him since forever."

"I told her she had to do something before Lauren stole him, so she's going to confess her love. You've got to get ready, Ang."

I sat down on the edge of her bed and watched them smear on a little too much cherry lip gloss and spritz each other with tiny bottles of perfume. I felt like Jane Goodall, trying to figure out the particulars of this bizarre feminine ritual playing out in front of me. I should have paid more attention when Renee tried to teach me these things. Angela skipped over to me and nearly blinded me with a spray to the face.

"What was that for?" I complained, coughing and trying to wave the vapors away.

"Don't you want to look good for James?"

I was a deer in the headlights. I could have killed Jessica.

"I'm sorry Bella," she whined. "I only told her to see if she would share her stuff with you too."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise."

I'd been betrayed, my deepest, darkest secret revealed. Yes, I had a crush on James, the bad boy of the class, or whatever the equivalent of a bad boy is when you're thirteen. Blonde hair, amber eyes, cool and broody. I have a type, I guess. I was determined to take this one to the grave. However, there was something about Angela's gung-ho attitude that made me feel like it wasn't such an outlandish idea. Maybe they could make me cute, and then he would look at me. The logic was water-tight.

"Okay," I replied hesitantly. "Just nothing crazy."

"Don't worry. Jess is an expert."

When I looked in the mirror again, there were pink vanilla-cupcake scented sparkles on my lips and my eyelashes were sticking together from the drugstore mascara Angela had swiped from her older sister. The overall effect was good. Actually, it was almost kind of...pretty? Surely I would be able to talk to him now without stuttering like a dumb-dumb. All dolled up, we rejoined our classmates in the den, who were about ten minutes into _The Grudge_. Jacob slid down off the couch and onto the carpet beside me, peering curiously at me from the edges of his vision.

"What?" I whispered. He squinted in confusion.

"Your face looks different." He sniffed the air. "You smell different, too"

My heart dropped into my stomach. Oh no. I must have looked ridiculous.

"Different-bad?"

"No, just different-different."

"It's perfume," I whispered back, averting my eyes. "Angie lent it to me."

He looked at me like I had three heads.

"But you're not into that stuff. Why would you-"

"-It's just a girl thing, okay?"

I felt bad for snapping at him. I could talk to Jake about anything, but not this kind of thing. The idea of even mentioning boys to him felt extremely weird, almost wrong. Until this point, he was the only guy in my life, platonic or otherwise. He enjoyed a special status as Guy Whomst Can Be Trusted, but he was still a guy, after all, and this was forbidden knowledge. He didn't need to hear about all this silly, squishy, girly stuff. I was embarrassed to even feel it in the first place. I wanted to be in love and be loved back, but boy did I bet on the wrong horse.

"Jeez, _so_ - _rry._ "

He returned his attention to the movie and didn't bring it up again. In fact, he didn't look at me again either. The boys were more concerned with making dumb jokes and picking on Eric for flinching at the jumpscares. It wasn't too bad, though that didn't stop the periodic shrieks from half of the girls. Perhaps the reason I wasn't joining them was because my mind was wandering off, and more often I found myself staring at the back of James's head.

_What should I do? Should I do anything? Maybe I should sit next to him later so he'll notice me. Would that be weird?_

We rarely talked, except when we were sorted into groups in English, and it was hardly a lively conversation, so I felt like it would have been weird of me to start. The hamsters turning the wheels inside my head were getting worn out, and so was I. My thought process was mercifully interrupted by Eric ducking in front of the screen on his way out of the room, blissfully unaware of the scheme that was about to unfold under Angela's watchful eye. I could already hear her and her accomplice whispering excitedly to each other. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"This is it! She's gonna do it!" whispered Jessica.

"O-oh wow," I stammered back as Ang rose to her feet. "Good luck."

She wasn't wasting any time. I found it pretty ballsy, but I admired her initiative. I only hoped it would turn out alright, or the festivities were going to take a sharp turn for the worse. If it hadn't, the party would have ended very differently for me as well.

It wasn't long before she slunk back in, pink and grinning at Jess and I like a cheshire cat, and planted herself along the back wall. Eric soon followed her in, not looking too different from her, and sat down on the floor beside her. We stole glances at her for the rest of the movie, as if we could piece the story together ourselves just by looking at them, and after a while, I noticed that their fingers were shyly linked together. I couldn't believe that it was that easy. She left the room for five minutes, and when she came back, she had a boyfriend. Boom. Just like that. She was already pretty and smart, so was this the final straw? Was the power of sandalwood and glitter so great that it could bend men to our will? It couldn't be _that_ crazy if it was getting results. For the first time, I was seriously entertaining the idea I could make a boy like me back, or that a boy could like me in the first place.

With the end of the movie came a dangerous lull; Chatter, kids going in and out, sodas tipping over on the floor and mountains of chips emptying into too few stomachs. There was no direction, no plan as to what would come next. It was only a matter of time before-

"Hey, let's do truth-or-dare!"

There was always one kid, usually a complete idiot or some scheming agent of chaos, who suggested truth-or-dare, and it frequently went awry. "Truth" was a trap with a propensity for ending in tears, fights, awkward "relationship" drama, or some combination thereof. "Dare" might end the same, but more likely would result in something getting broken. Even at that age, I knew it was a gamble. That didn't stop me from joining the circle.

Jake was rooked into participating by Embry, who sat a few kids down from me and proceeded to egg everyone on. Jacob still wasn't paying much attention to me, but every now and again, I thought I caught him looking from the corner of his eyes. It was an odd thing for him to do. He had no problems looking at me normally, and frequently did, but it wasn't weird because it was Jacob. Who would have thought that I would ever wonder why a boy _wasn't_ staring at me? He must have been sore from earlier, but we'd make up tonight.

Dare. Truth. Dare. Dare. Mike had never kissed a girl, shock of shocks. Jessica had to prank call her dad. Tanya had a boyfriend that she met at summer camp. It was a whole lot of softball questions that generated no controversy, so I had high hopes. It wound around the group until it was finally Jake's turn, and then the question. He was definitely looking at me now, and doing a bad job hiding it. Lauren must have seen something that I didn't, because a huge smirk broke out across her face.

"I think Jake wants to do 'truth'," she sang in that poisonous drawl.

He paused. His breathing was growing subtly heavier, but then he seemed to snap out of it, breaking away to look at Lauren again to announce his choice in a firm, low voice:

"Dare."

"Hmmm," she pondered. Suddenly, a wicked smile crossed her lips. "I dare you to spend five minutes in the closet with Tanya." A chorus of scandalized "Oooh"s rippled through the group, and he huffed in resignation.

"Fine."

Tanya proceeded without another care in the world. Jake, not feeling encouraged by the chants of "Do it!" coming from his peers, hesitated before standing and awkwardly following her into the storage closet. It was very possible that she and Lauren were conspiring to do this from the beginning, which was the exact brand of petty middle school crap they were known for. What confused me was Jake's reaction. We were on roughly the same page when it came to our opinions on Tanya but she was easily the prettiest girl in our class, so how bad could five minutes in a closet be?

Five minutes was a lot longer than I remembered, like sitting in time-out back in kindergarten. I was feeling fidgety, and was relieved when Mike finally called the time and let them out. She looked notably sour as Jacob practically power-walked away from her and back to his spot. The look she gave Lauren was all anyone needed to know. I was admittedly a bit puzzled by this. Guys wanted to kiss girls any chance they got, right? What was his deal? Maybe she wasn't his type, not that I had any idea what his type was. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember him liking anyone. I'd read that girls mature faster, and Jake was already younger than me, so maybe he just wasn't interested in that kind of thing yet.

I was starting to get cold feet. There were two kids before me, so maybe if I ducked out for some pretzels and a coke, they would just skip over me. It was worth a shot. Jacob's eyes were on me as I climbed to my feet, closing the door behind me. I padded down to the kitchen to find a smorgasbord of flavored chips and room-temperature snacks. I nibbled lazily on a few tortilla chips, grazing a bit before deciding that the coast ought to be clear by now. I tiptoed up to the door, pausing to listen and make sure that they had already moved past me.

"Okay James: Truth or dare?"

"Truth," came his muffled voice through the door. I froze, struck with intrigue. I didn't understand how he could be so nonchalant about this.

"Do you like somebody?"

Predictable to the point of cliche, but it was a standby for a reason. The second the words came out, my heart began beating through my chest. I had zero expectations, but I also couldn't help but entertain the teensy possibility that I would hear my name. My imagination was a cruel mistress.

"Yes," he replied, cool and dispassionate as always. But the girls were not going to take that as a complete answer.

"Okay, who?" asked Jessica

She was going to keep fishing. I knew her intentions were altruistic, and I appreciated it in hindsight, but that would only get us so far.

"Tanya?"

"Nope."

"Lucy? Angela? Lauren?"

"Nope nope nope," he replied, popping his p's.

"What about Bella?"

I was ready to jump off the jagged cliffs of First Beach and let the sea take me, and I hadn't even heard the answer. I changed my mind; I didn't want to know anymore.

"Ugh, no way. She's so... _weird._ "

That was it. Pack it in, guys. Bella .exe has stopped working. It was like a punch to the gut, and the newly formed lump in my throat seemed to pop like a water balloon, sending water streaming out of my eyes through a stifled wail. I sure as hell couldn't go back in there now. There was no other choice but to bail. I ran back to Angela's room, stumbling as I passed by her oblivious father watching basketball on the couch. Slamming the door shut proved to be the final straw for Jesse, who slid down onto the floor beside me, his photoshopped smile feeling like cruel mockery of a maiden's pain.

So it was true, then. I was just as unlikable as I thought, too reserved and plain to catch a boy's attention, and to add insult to injury, now I was weird. That day had been a never-ending conga line of humiliation, and I was determined to hibernate on this rug until it was all over. It's not like anyone would notice I was gone. Then came a gentle knock on the door.

"Bells? You in there?"

Jake cracked the door open and stuck his head inside, only to be greeted by a silly girl ugly-crying while various liquids, some glittery and others distinctly less so, ran down her face. As soon as it registered, he quickly knelt down next to me, craning his neck around to look at my dumb face.

"Hey," he said softly. "What's the matter?"

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. Forget telling him about James. It was ten times worse now and just as embarrassing.

"C'mon, Bells. What's wrong?" I sniffed.

"Mmm-mm."

He glanced at the door from over his shoulder, where laughing and loud voices had taken over again. The thought of having to leave the room at any point and face my classmates, especially looking like this, rendered me petrified.

"Do you wanna go home?"

I felt ever lamer than I did before. Great; now I was weird _and_ a total crybaby. Regardless, my overwhelming sense of dread convinced me to nod my head.

"Okay," he said. "I'll go call Mom to pick us up. I'll be right back." He couldn't have made it halfway down the hall before Jess and Angela came bursting in, their faces etched with remorse.

"Oh my gosh, Bella! I'm so sorry!" Jessica's voice was rising in pitch with every word. "I didn't think- I was trying to-"

"This was so stupid!" My voice cracked through a shuddering exhale, and I wiped the lip gloss off with the back of my sleeve. "I'm an idiot!"

"No, you're not," said Angela. "James is a total jerk. You're way better off without him."

Somehow, I didn't find that very comforting. She offered me a half empty box of tissues from her nightstand, which I gratefully accepted. They sat with me through my pathetic sniffling, but made themselves scarce when Jacob came back to collect me.

Jake's mother picked us up in her truck and remained as off-topic as possible for the entire trip back to the reservation. As much as I loved Billy, I was glad that he was on a fishing trip with Harry and not here, watching me dunk the corner of my grilled cheese into the soup over and over again until the bread disintegrated. Sarah always had a keen eye for this kind of thing, and somehow, she always knew what to do. Raising a double-dose of teenage girls probably had a lot to do with it. After making my favorite dinner, she made up a bed for me on the couch and discreetly let my dad know I was staying over.

Jacob, on the other hand, was still completely perplexed by the ordeal, following me around like a lost puppy until she declared it was lights-out. I couldn't sleep. Every awful thought I had was creeping back into my consciousness, summoning more tears. I really wanted to avoid an encore and just sleep off this terrible day, but it wasn't going to happen. I managed to keep it quiet this time, except for the occasional hiccup. The squeak of a door hinge carried down the hall, and Jake, a shadow except for the nightlight in the corner, tiptoed in.

"Psst! You awake?"

"Yeah."

I sat up and dabbed my eyes with the corner of the blanket. Careful to avoid the notoriously squeaky parts of the oak floors, he snuck across the room and sat next to me. I drew my legs in and hugged them to my chest. In a ribbon of moonlight that crossed his face, I could see his brows knitted together trying to study my face. Despite the odd timing, I couldn't help but notice how pretty his eyes were, like two shards of onyx glimmering in the darkness.

"What happened?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," I mumbled. He sighed heavily.

"Please? It feels like everyone else knows but me." I didn't answer. "Come on, Bells. We tell each other everything."

"This is different."

"How?"

"It just is."

He frowned, but said no more. An unbidden tear managed to escape down the tip of my nose. After a long stretch of quiet, my curiosity got the better of me again, and I opened my mouth.

"Do you think I'm weird?

He paused, and then a look of recognition swept across his face.

"Oh, honey," he said. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close. It was like having a warm blanket wrapped around me, fresh from the dryer. I know this must have been a confusing sight for other people, but I didn't care. No matter what was going on, I always felt safe there.

"Don't listen to him. He says stupid crap like that all the time 'cause he thinks it makes him sound cool."

I couldn't restrain myself anymore. My voice wobbled as my eyes began to flood yet again.

"What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, Bells."

"Then why don't boys like me?"

"I like you," he murmured.

"No, I mean _like me_ \- like me." He laid his head back onto the couch.

"It'll happen, alright? Don't worry about it."

"How do you know?" I asked. I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but in my condition, it felt more like I was being bullshitted.

"I just do." I wasn't convinced.

"I'm gonna turn into a crazy cat lady," I muttered. "And then I'll die alone and nobody will know, and then my cats will eat my eyeballs." He gave an exasperated sigh.

"That's just a myth. And besides, you're being crazy. You're not gonna die alone."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do! What, do I not count as 'somebody'?"

My mouth snapped shut, and I looked away. I had a bad habit of taking Jacob for granted. It was hard not to when I had seen him almost every day for ten years. He felt like a permanent fixture in my life, and to suggest otherwise was to be like one of those pedantic assholes who ask how you "know" the sun will rise in the morning. I just did. I had complete faith that no matter what came to pass, he would be in my life. If only I ever learned from my mistakes.

"I didn't mean it like that," I murmured. "I just meant that I want to have a family when I grow up, and now I'm scared I never will."

"I promise you will."

"You can't promise that." I rolled my eyes. "Unless you're psychic now or something."

'Fine," he huffed. He rotated to look me square in the face. "How about this: If we're both still alone by the time we turn thirty, we'll get married."

I blinked while I tried to process his proposal, but the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me. Getting to live together sounded awesome, like one big sleepover every night without anyone making us go to sleep. We could get a big house like I always wanted and a bunch of dogs like he always wanted. Rebecca and Rachel would actually be my big sisters, and Billy and Sarah would be my parents too. The Blacks and the Swans would be a real family. I loved Jacob, of course, though in what way and to what extent wasn't clear to me at the time. I didn't give that much consideration. The important part was that he and I would always be together.

"You promise?" I held out my little finger.

His cautious expression gave way to the goofy grin I knew and loved, and with a low chuckle, he linked his pinky with mine.

"Promise."


	2. Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no place like home.

I swung the duffel over my shoulder, shoved the door to the trunk down, and it closed with a loud thump. That was the last of my personal effects. There was still plenty in the front of my rental and in the trailer, but this would get me through the night at least. I was worried about enlisting Charlie's help with moving, with his back being as bad as it was. Gazing upward, I took in the shabby splendor of my childhood home, with its faded paint and its single-pane windows that nearly froze the house over in the winter. It was the last place I'd expected to be at this point in my life, but here I was.

There was nothing about my life that matched what I'd foreseen for the last decade. I was only just thirty, but I was broke, alone, jobless, and up to my ass in debt, and now I was moving back in with my father. It was hardly the worst thing in the world, and I was lucky to even have a place to crash rent-free after this nightmare. It wasn't that uncommon for people my age, even if nothing had gone horribly wrong with their lives, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was returning home in disgrace.

My dad greeted me at the door, his graying mustache trying and failing to conceal a wide smile.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, pulling me in for a hug. "It's good to have you home."

"Yeah, it is." I could have put more effort behind that response, but the long drive had not improved my mood, go figure. He ushered me inside, and I followed him to the kitchen.

"Just drop your bag by the door. You want anything to drink?" He stuck his head in the fridge, shuffling unseen glass and plastic inside. "Water? Soda? Maybe something stronger?"

"Just water, please. It's probably a bit early for anything else."

He handed me a glass and joined me at the kitchen table. The table was the same, speckled with scuffs and scratches and a few errant swipes of permanent marker, but clean at least. Same buttercup cabinets and white linoleum. I went back for Christmas a few times in years past, and every time I expected things to look completely different, but they never did. Forks was frozen in time, but at least it was a better time.

"How was the drive? The guys at the station tell me traffic going in and out of the city is terrible nowadays. Wouldn't touch that place with a ten foot pole."

"It wasn't too bad. It's been so long since I've done any real driving that I was more worried about how I'd handle any roads. I'm a little rusty."

"Well, we don't get much traffic over here to worry about."

"I'll need a car first."

"Sure, sure," he replied. After a few moments of quiet between us, he finally asked: "How're you doing?"

Thus far, Charlie's understanding of my situation was based entirely off of a weepy, somewhat unintelligible phone call from Angela's apartment and a handful of text messages finalizing the details of my move. He never liked Edward in the first place. Nobody really did, or they were at least a little wary of him, but Dad was polite and civil as anyone could expect. He was sympathetic now, but that didn't mean that the rest of them hadn't started doing cartwheels the second the news broke out.

"I'm alright," I replied, massaging that one throbbing spot on my temple. "Tired, mostly. I was trying to put a plan together on the drive here, but there's so much that needs to be done and I don't even know where to start."

"There's no rush. Take a little time to breathe and settle in first. Your bedroom's ready for you, if you wanna change or lie down or something."

"That's okay," I said. "I should probably start bringing all my stuff in." His attention snapped to the window, and he stood.

"No need. I got us some help."

A dark blue SUV pulled into the driveway, looking brand new and glistening in the afternoon sun, and out stepped a tall, impossibly sculpted man: the last person I expected to see. I didn't stick around for Dad to elaborate. Before I had time to think, I found myself running out the front door.

"Jake?"

As soon as he saw me, he broke into a huge grin.

"Hey there, stranger!"

I seized him around the waist as if he was about to make a break for it. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me.

"Good to see you too, honey."

Charlie cleared his throat behind me. I'd probably lingered there for a little too long, but it was hard not to. I drew back, shoving my hands into my jacket pockets. I was short of breath, which I could only partially blame on the physical exertion. He was a fascinating thing to behold; he had to be at least six-two, his shaggy black hair elegantly disheveled, and he was huge. Sure, he filled out about halfway through high school, but this was ridiculous. Unlike every previous iteration of Jacob, his jeans were clean and dark, as was the plain black shirt that clung to his chest. Jesus Christ, he grew up good.

"Hey there, Chief," he said with a nod.

"Wow, I haven't seen you in forever. How long has it been?"

"About six years," Jake said rather quickly. "But who's counting?"

It was his usual jokey-joke fashion, but I still felt his meaning all too well. That's not to say I didn't feel his absence just as badly; The Jake-shaped hole in my life ached just as much, likely more, but I had allowed myself to grow accustomed to it, and it was slowly absorbed into the growing miasma that followed me everywhere for close to a decade. I was sure my therapist would have had a ball dissecting that one for me.

"Definitely too long," I said, smiling and nodding and trying not to look sheepish.

"We're just glad to have her home again," Charlie added, patting me on the back.

"Agreed."

"What have you been up to? What have I missed?"

"A whole lot of things, but I should get started. I promise we'll catch up later. You're not paying me to stand around, after all."

"I'm not paying you at all," said Charlie.

"Good, because my hourly rates just went up again." Jake smirked, and Dad left us to it with a chuckle. I followed him to the back of the trailer, where he raised the cargo door with surprising ease.

"So, are you a gigolo now or…?" Jake snorted loudly, looking back at me with bolstered amusement as he hoisted two stacked boxes into his arms.

"Maybe, but I don't think you can afford me," he said with a wink. "I'm _very_ expensive."

"Supply and demand at work, I guess." He raised an eyebrow, watching me from over his shoulder as I tried to keep up with his pace, his smirk only growing more pronounced. I felt color rising in my cheeks. He was too good at messing with me, and I always fell for it.

"You want these in your room?"

"Uh, sure. Thanks."

"No problem, honey."

He deposited the goods by the foot of the bed and took a long look around the room with a whistle.

"Looks like time stood still in here."

"I know," I said dryly. "It's like a time capsule from 2007." I was trying not to be ungrateful, but there was something incredibly depressing about such an on-the-nose manifestation of the horseshoe-shaped trajectory of my life. He strolled over to my bookshelf, turning over one of my dusty childhood tchotchkes as if to study the brushstrokes.

"That was a pretty good year," he mused.

"Tell that to Britney."

That broke his pensive state. He chuckled and set it down. He seemed to get taller as he approached, and it occurred to me just how intimidating he must appear to everyone else. He might be a beast now, but I knew him when he was just a slobbery mutt, swiping my food and taking up all the space on the couch. At least he smelled better now. Actually, even given the heat and the trek up the stairs, he smelled weirdly good.

"C'mon," he said, nodding towards the door. "I'll go get the rest."

It was hard not to follow him around like an annoying younger sibling, so I settled for absentmindedly sorting the various boxes as they appeared, making mental notes for which to start with and which ones I could ignore for a while. I finally relented and moved downstairs, my eyes following him restlessly like a kit kat clock as he went back and forth.

"Hey, Jake?" I called from the kitchen over his heavy footfalls on the floor above. "You want something to drink?"

"Just wait 'till he's done, Bella."

"Dad, he's been at it for twenty minutes. He can take a break; he's not my slave."

"Your slave would like a beer, please," he shouted as he descended the stairs. Charlie cracked one open for him and handed it off as he passed.

"Make sure you save some for your old man, Jacob. He'll need something to ease the pain tonight while he watches the Marlins lose." I rolled my eyes.

"You'd two were supposed to be cutting back, remember?"

"I'm taking it easy. This isn't a frat house, but it's not Utah, either," he grumbled. "I hope you don't mind; I invited Billy over for dinner. I thought a couple of friendly faces might be nice on your first night at home."

"Not at all. I wish I didn't look like such a mess for the first time they've seen me in half a decade."

"You look fine, kiddo, all things considered."

"What a glowing endorsement. Remind me to not take you with me next time I go clothes shopping."

"You look great, Bells," Jake called from the front door, dumping the last box in the foyer. He strolled back in, beer once again in hand, wiping his forehead with a satisfied huff.

"I think that's everything."

"Thank you so much, Jake. You really didn't have to do that."

"Consider it my welcome-home present. I've got to go pick up Dad now, but I'll take care of that last box when we get back."

"Sure, whenever is fine." I walked him to the door, where he prodded the box with his shoe.

"What have you got in there, bricks?"

"My anvil collection."

"Sure, sure."

Say something. Say something, you big dumb idiot.

"So...I guess I'll see you later?"

Perfect.

"Yeah. I'll see you later," he replied with a quick nod and a smile.

As soon as the door was firmly latched, I leaned heavily against it, blinking and staring into dead space. It was becoming increasingly obvious that my lizard brain had been running the show since he arrived, and it was going to take a minute to get the rest of it up to speed. Probably clued in by the sudden silence, Dad came looking for me, one eyebrow tweaked.

"You alright, there?"

"Yeah, just a lot on my mind right now," I exhaled. "Has it really been six years?" He paused thoughtfully.

"Well, he was on a business trip that time you came down for Thanksgiving, so I think the last time you were both in Forks was for Harry's funeral."

That was a one-two punch to my already guilty conscience. I'd been with Edward's family the last few Christmases, and I had to twist his arm to come to Thanksgiving with me before that. And it wasn't just that I hadn't seen Jake since Harry passed; I hadn't been there for Charlie. God, I wasn't there for poor Billy either, who had now lost one of his closest friends _and_ his wife. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like a selfish ass for showing my face here after all this time and asking for help. What was Charlie going to do, say no? On top of trying to hot glue my life back together, now I was going to need to redeem myself in the eyes of the family I'd cast aside to be with the guy who smashed it up in the first place. Maybe Edward and I deserved each other.

"Are you sure you're up for having company? I can call Billy and ask if we can reschedule."

"No, no, it's fine," I said, waving it off. "I want to see them. It's been way too long as it is. I think I'll just go lay down for a little bit before they get here, if that's okay."

"Of course. " Dad pulled me in for a much needed hug. "Just take it slow, okay? One thing at a time."

I passed out cold. I'd spent most nights of the last week either crying my eyes out or hyperventilating over what I was going to do next, and the cold, serene blackness of a dreamless hour-long nap felt like a cruise to the Bahamas. If only I looked like I had just gotten back from the Bahamas; Even though putting on pants and brushing my teeth were insurmountable challenges just a few days before, I forced myself to dab some concealer over the half moons under my eyes and run a brush through my hair. I frowned. Better, but not good. I gave up and wandered toward the stairs, descending slowly and carefully to avoid slipping in my socks and adding broken bones to this walking catastrophe. As I drew closer to the bottom, the hum of soft, low voices began to manifest.

"Is he still there?"

"No. She said he's at a conference in New York for two weeks." Ah, Charlie.

"Good," scoffed a smooth baritone. "I'd prefer 'in the ground,' but New York is close enough for now."

"Don't you start making trouble, Jacob," Billy warned.

"Relax, will you? I wouldn't do that to her."

"No, but I know you're itching for a fight, and he's looking for a reason to sue somebody."

"Pfft, please. Look at me. I could snap him like a twig, and Rachel would get the judge to let me off and call it community service. Oh Chief, don't look at me like that. I told you I wouldn't do anything that would make this harder for her. It took this long just to see Bella again, and I'm not about to scare her off."

"Good," he grunted.

"Though if she asks me to deck him, all bets are off."

The old men groaned, one chair scraping back against the floor followed by heavy footsteps towards the stove.

"Alright, no more Cullen talk tonight."

I finally decided to quit lurking in the shadows and make my appearance. Something was sizzling in a pan on the stove, making a savory smoke waft through and into the living room. Finding all three of them in my kitchen again, with warm and welcoming smiles, instantly brought me back.

"Hey, kiddo. I was just about to come get you." I yawned.

"Sorry, I overslept a bit. Hi, Billy."

"Don't you 'Hi, Billy' me, missy," he replied with mock annoyance. "Come here and give me a hug." I obliged and nearly had the life squeezed out of me. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too." I pulled away to take a better look at him. "How are you?"

I wasn't sure if it was age or his illness, but his overall appearance did not convince me of an optimistic answer. His long braids were grayer than I remembered, much grayer, and the lines around his eyes were beginning to deepen. He clearly wasn't weak, but he was definitely showing the kinds of signs that worried me about my own father.

"Good, good," he replied. "The kids are taking good care of their old man. Rachel and Paul send their love. They wanted to drop by and say hello, but the baby's been keeping us up till the wee hours lately and I figured they shouldn't be driving."

"She's almost three," my dad said, sparing me the pain of acknowledging yet again how out of the loop I was. "Precious little thing. The terrible twos hit 'em hard, but she's always good for Grandpa, isn't she?"

"Of course," Billy chuckled. "Lily's an angel. I think it's because we share a common enemy. Here, come sit with us. Let your father do his thing."

Dinner was far more relaxing than I would have expected. They kept their inquiries into my life to a minimum, out of courtesy no doubt, and we all glided along on cheery, light conversation and a nearly foot-high stack of fish fillets, which I may or may not have downed half of by myself. Any weirdness between Jake and I seemed not to matter. He grinned and made jabs at me and stole the last french fry from my plate. For an hour, I got to pretend that everything was fine and nothing had changed.

I tried to help clean up the kitchen, but was swiftly shooed away by Charlie, who wheeled Billy into the living room to watch the game. Anxious to keep my hands busy, I started grabbing plates anyways. It was just habit at this point. When you live rent-free for that long, every dirty plate or missed spot on the rug feels like a neon sign that says "freeloader." Two tiny cracks sounded behind me, and suddenly I was being handed a beer.

"Bells, you can hold off on chores for one night, can't you?"

It was the same hopeful smile with pleading eyes I saw for fifteen years. 'Five more minutes?' 'Can Bells stay for dinner?' 'Can you come out tonight?' 'You can put off homework for an hour, can't you?' I could never say no to the puppy face, even when I knew he was pulling my strings. It was hard to resist back then, even for me, but now, combined with his transformation into a six-two slab of muscle, if he decided to use his powers for evil, he'd be unstoppable.

"Yeah, of course I can." I shut off the water and accepted his offering.

"Then let's take this to the porch and leave the old men to it."

"Right behind you."

The moon and the sun were both out, the former refusing to wait its turn until the latter was finished setting behind the trees. I'd been in the city for so many years that I forgot how pretty Forks was when it wasn't raining or up to your ass in snow.

"So," I began, perching on the porch rail. "What have I missed, besides everything?"

"Hmmm, let's see. Started college, moved out of my parent's place-"

"-I was thinking a little more recent." He smirked.

"Well, I just opened my third shop a couple months ago."

"Third?" I parroted, my mouth popping open.

"Yup." He took a long, satisfied swig.

"Last time I saw you, you were managing that shop in La Push."

"And now I'm running Port Angeles and Hoodsport as well."

"Holy shit," I whispered. "Jake, that's amazing!"

His car, which was sitting proudly alongside the moving van and the dusty cruiser, made a lot more sense now.

"Thanks."

We sat quietly for a moment. I'd forgotten that silence could be comfortable, rather than the hallmark of some grave misdeed on my part. Welcome as it was, I was going to need some time to un-Pavlov myself out of that lingering discomfort.

"Is it weird being back?" He asked.

"Kind of. I never thought I would be. Not like this. Shows what I know, I guess. Is it weird that I'm back?"

"Maybe a little. A lot's changed."

"Yeah, I'm figuring that out," I said, sipping from the bottle in the hopes that I could swallow any bitterness in my voice along with this cheap IPA.

"I'm sorry about the circumstances, but I really am glad you're here. I missed you. We all did." Another smile intended to reassure me. I worried that if I massaged the issue too much, I'd find something less reassuring lurking deeper underneath.

"I missed you, too," I said quietly.

"Now it's time for you to tell me what I've missed." I took a deep breath. Here we go.

"Well, my English degree didn't pan out like I thought. I was working a few bullshit jobs here and there for a while, but I wasn't making enough to put much of a dent in my loans, so I went back for a master's." I sighed heavily. "Which made the second problem worse, but I might be able to get some of it forgiven if I find a teaching gig. Even then, I still won't be able to live on my own for a while since the loan payments eat almost half of my income."

Oh no. I could feel myself backsliding into that whirlpool of "what if's" and "I can't's" and "I'll never's" that had laid claim over my conscious thoughts every moment that wasn't otherwise occupied by sleeping or ruminating on my awful discovery. A lump rose in my throat, but I couldn't swallow that either, and I could hear my voice cracking as the words started coming out like a broken dam.

"But I don't know if there are even any job openings in Forks, and if there are, I still don't have a car or enough savings to get me through more than two months of unemployment, and some of my stuff is still in Seattle that I don't know if I'll get back, and then Dad—"

That's when I sprung a leak. I was so angry with myself for crying like this, for wasting time and energy, for dragging Jacob into my pathetic tale of woe. We were supposed to be having a nice evening, damnit. I waltzed out of Forks with all the care and confidence of a fifteen year old afer half a Redbull, and now I was going to waltz right back in, putting everyone out and dragging them into my self-inflicted shitshow. God, I suck.

I suddenly felt his thick arms around me, gently pulling me close.

"Hey...Shhhh, it's okay, honey." He just held me there, stroking my hair while I let myself come completely unglued. This wasn't how I wanted any of this to go. With some difficulty, I reeled myself back in and pulled myself away.

"I'm sorry," I said with a pathetic chuckle, dabbing at my eyes with my sleeve. "I shouldn't be dumping all of that on you, especially on day-one."

"Honestly, I would've been really impressed if you didn't. That's too much for one person to deal with on their own, and definitely too much for the first 24 hours."

"I don't know," I sniffed. "I feel like I'm so far behind that I don't have time to lose." He rolled his eyes.

"You've got tons of time. You act like turning thirty is the same as hitting midnight on the Doomsday Clock."

"All aboard the Cat Lady Express. Choo-choo," I replied bitterly, picking at the label on the bottle.

"Not this again. Look, you're not going into this alone. You've got Charlie and me, Dad, the twins, Renee-"

"-is on a beach somewhere in Acapulco with Flavor-Of-The-Month, conveniently ignoring my calls." He sighed heavily and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

"You know what I'm getting at, Bells. We're all going to help you get to the other side of this. You've just gotta take it easy and not be so hard on yourself, okay?"

"Okay, I murmured." I couldn't argue with him. He was making an annoying amount of sense when my ego wanted to liquify and pour itself down the drain. We had somehow switched places: Jacob now the responsible one, and me, the one wrecking other people's shit.

"You ready to climb down off that ledge now?" he said with a flash of teeth.

"Yes," I grumbled.

A loud buzzing against my hip made me jump. I'd blocked all the necessary numbers, including most of the family, but the vibrate setting still made my heart stop every time I heard it. Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

_Nessie_

"Oops. Sorry, I've gotta take this." He let go with a little squeeze and stepped away. "Hey….Yeah, I'm sorry. I lost track of time...Family dinner, remember?...Yeah, she and her dad...Uh-huh...Uh-huh...Sure...I have an early day, so how about Friday?...Cool, I'll pick you up at six...Love you, too...Okay, bye."

Oh.

Just one single thought.

_Oh._

Of course he had a girlfriend. Why wouldn't he? He probably had women throwing themselves at him left and right. For some reason, it felt a bit weird. Maybe it was because he never dated in high school. My guess was always that girls didn't trust a guy with a close female friend. But things change, and so had this. Jake had other women in his life now. So what? I could share. I had never done it before, but how hard could it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Things are really heating up over in My Guy, which means I might need to buy myself a little extra time to work on chapter 24. I've had chapter 2 done for a little while now, so I decided to go ahead and post chapter 2 to tide y'all over until then. I'm not sure if it will be in chapter 3 or 4, but we will definitely be hearing from Jacob soon.
> 
> Please continue leaving your thoughts in the reviews! Tell your senpai how you feel.


	3. Immature

I had only been home for a week when my anxiety finally won the fight against my exhaustion. Dad kept telling me to rest, recuperate, collect myself, none of which felt like a real option. When I wasn't sleeping or compulsively cleaning the house, I was staring at my laptop, scrolling through job ads, entering and reentering the same goddamn info that was on my resume for hours until my eyeballs wanted to pop out of my skull and roll away. Everything was in Port Angeles, of course. I could find work in Forks all day if I wanted to be the peninsula's most overqualified fry cook. Come for the curly fries, stay for the nuanced analysis of Chaucer's use of meter as a major influence on English literature.

Port Angeles meant a commute. A commute meant a car. A car meant a monthly payment, insurance, gas, years off my life, etc. It would need to be reliable, have good mileage, good safety standards, not be falling apart, on and on and on. Another list of decisions to make within a decision. I missed my old truck, even if she was a bit of a gas hog. Edward never understood my attachment to it. It was at his insistence that I finally sold my "pile of scrap metal," since I wouldn't need a car in Seattle. Every day, I was discovering even more things I gave up for that bastard.

Charlie, bless him, checked in on me every couple of hours to browbeat me into eating, until I finally decided to relocate my job search from my bed to the couch to save his ailing knees. His secondary concern was the amount of time I spent on my computer which, given his techno-phobia, was unsurprising. He was still a small town guy, and Forks was the kind of small town where you got a job because you heard through your neighbor that their friend's daughter's mother-in-law's accountant knew of an opening at the bakery down the street. It was not the kind of place where your job came with health insurance. Something else to add to the list; I hadn't been to the doctor for years except for birth control and Prozac.

As we rolled into week two, my lack of significant progress was starting to fray my nerves. I needed something, even if it was an email back about my applications, just so I could hop off this treadmill for a minute and breathe. My body didn't abide by my conditions. I found myself dozing off on the couch, only to be woken up by the sound of my name.

"Hey, Bella?" Charlie called from the entryway. "Can you come help me with something?"

"Yeah, sure Dad."

Still groggy, I followed him out the door and onto the porch, where a very abrupt change in the yard's usual color palette was waiting.

"Ta-da!"

I froze, blinking in disbelief.

"Oh my God. Is that…?"

"It sure is."

My truck, my baby, was sitting in the driveway and looking better than ever. Rosie was sporting a new coat of paint that made her look like a shiny new apple. As I circled the truck, I noticed that the rust spots were gone, and the hinge on the tailgate was fixed. This was some fairy godmother-level stuff.

"I sold it to George Applegate back when you moved. You remember him, don't you?"

I didn't.

"Mhmmm." I was still marveling at its pristine condition.

"Well, he'd just retired and wanted a project to keep himself busy, so he took to refurbishing antique cars. After his wife died about a year ago, he decided he was going to sell off his collection and move to Florida."

"You bought my car back?" I asked, still stunned and finally awake.

"Yup. He had someone else who was interested, but when I told him it was for you, he insisted that you should have it. Practically gave it to me."

"Holy crap, Dad!"

I practically rammed into my father with a hug that cracked his back.

"Thank you so much."

"Of course, kiddo. You can't do much around here without a car, can you? It's only right that you get Rosie back."

"No, you don't understand. This means so much to me." I could feel myself getting misty. "You took me in, you found my truck...I don't know how to thank you enough."

"Put me in a good home," he chuckled. "A private one with a window, and take me out to dinner on tapioca night."

"Deal," I sniffed.

"Can I convince you to put down that computer and eat some dinner now?"

"Okay, but I'm cooking tonight."

He handed me the keys. Just a plain ring with a key, a spare and the key to our house.. With a parting kiss to the cheek, I dashed up the stairs to my room, the tarnished metal clutched tightly in my fist. Tearing through my thus far undisturbed moving boxes, I finally located my memory box. It was once a rigid gift box, now covered in a collage of newspaper clippings and photos from magazines. It was the repository for all my childhood memorabilia, mostly old photos and silly knick-knacks, a place where all the love and happiness of those years could lay safe and dormant. After digging through, I finally found it: the wooden charm Jake made for me, a deep russet wolf baying at the moon. Time to return it to its proper place on my key ring, a little bit of him wherever I went.

Then I frowned. I hadn't seen Jake since my first night home. Alas, I was too easily fooled by the nostalgia that governed the evening. I wasn't his "number one" anymore, remember? To be honest, he hadn't been my number one in a long time, because Edward was my number one-through-ten. Jacob was busy with work, no doubt. His girlfriend probably occupied most of his free time, and he had to fit sleep in there somewhere. He wasn't just going to slide back into his old spot in my life. Hopefully, I'd be busy soon, too. It'll be fine.

Dad and I were mostly quiet over dinner. He filled me in on the goings on at the station, along with some drama surrounding a proposal to build a Target in the empty lot on the edge of town. Things were so simple here that it was adorable.

"So," I began, twirling the noodles around my fork. "Jake said he's running three shops now."

"Mhmm," he hummed through a mouthful. "They have him running back and forth between them while they get Hoodsport off its training wheels."

"Where's he living now?"

"He's back on the rez. He bought an old fixer-upper with some property last year. He and the boys were working on it on the weekends for a while until he got the new shop. Last I saw, he'd replaced the roof and was working on the plumbing. You should ask him to show it to you. It's going to look like a dream once it's finished."

"Wow, he _has_ been busy. I figured he would be in Port Angeles to save himself the commute."

"He was for a while."

_Don't. I mean it, Bella. Don't-_

"Is that where he met his girlfriend?"

His eyes, previous on his plate, flashed up at me, and then back to the meatball.

"Mhmmm."

Now we were getting down to it. I couldn't hold back my curiosity.

"What's she like?"

"Name's Vanessa. Nice girl. She's a massage therapist."

"And?" I probed.

"And what? I said she was nice." I rolled my eyes.

"You might as well have told me her blood type." He finally looked up from his food.

"Why are you so curious?"

"Because I've been gone for so long! I don't know anything about his life. I'm trying to get up to speed. And I've got to make sure she's good enough for him," I laughed, albeit weakly.

He stared back at me.

"Uh-huh," he said flatly. "So why don't you just ask him, then?"

_Retreat. Retreat._

"I don't know," I mumbled. "It felt like a weird thing to ask, and who knows when I'll see him again."

"Soon, I'm sure. Things have been crazy all over. He'll be back."

He caught me chewing on my lip again, a habit left over from my awkward teen years. My "tell," if I was ever stupid enough to play poker with real money.

"Here," he said, reaching into his back pocket. "Let me give him your number."

He squinted at his screen and began stabbing at it with his index finger. You'd think he would know better, given how many times he buttdialed me just by simply brushing against the phone with his hand, but you would be wrong.

"There we go. Now he knows how to get ahold of you."

"Thanks. I just hope he's not too busy."

"He'll make time, Bella."

There was no denying that I deserved this, at least a little bit. Sucks, don't it? More of the delayed results of bad karma. I was almost finished with dinner when I felt that familiar buzzing in my back pocket.

 _Unknown Number:_ _Hey Bells. It's Jake. How was your first week back?_

I looked up from the screen to see Charlie one of his patented told-you-so smiles. They used to frustrate me as a kid, but this time, I was glad to be wrong. He hated phones at the table, but my fingers were itching to text him back. I wolfed down what was left and excused myself to take care of the dishes at lightning speed before jogging up the stairs to my room with newfound giddiness. How old was I, fifteen? Making a mad dash to my room so I could text a boy in private? Well, not 'a boy' in the traditional sense. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

 _Me:_ _Not too bad. A lot of unpacking. I think I'm getting kind of stir crazy already._

He answered back almost immediately.

 _Jake:_ _Yeah, Forks has that effect on people. I've been so busy lately that I actually miss it._

 _Me:_ _Dad told me you're working on a house, too. You're making time to sleep, right?_

 _Jake_ _: lol whenever I can pencil it in. I'm finishing the drywall this weekend. You should come check it out._

 _Me:_ _I'd love to. Just let me know when you're free._

 _Jake:_ _Will do, honey._

I couldn't remember the last time I felt so content. I was going to see Jake, _and_ I had my own way of getting there. Cool, I'd graduated from fifteen to sixteen, and much like a sixteen year old, I was crossing my fingers that I wouldn't crash my new car on our first day out.

For the rest of the week, my job hunting efforts were admittedly a little half-assed. I scrolled through the same websites over and over, hoping there would be something new, or at least an email waiting for me. It was like a dating app: mostly radio silence or scammers and the occasional "Thanks, but no thanks," except this one decided if you get to eat.

The comparison made me shudder and close my laptop. The very concept of dating again was terrifying, and trying to find a guy at my age, if my friend's horror stories were to be believed, was akin to sticking your hand in a drawer full of mousetraps and hoping for the best. Even worse was the fact that I'd never dated anyone but Edward, so I was going into this blind. From what I could gather, if you like someone's face, then you make small talk over messenger for a few weeks before getting coffee, and weeks, maybe months later, you decide if you actually like them enough to continue. What a bizarre concept. I already had feelings for Edward when we met, so of course I knew I wanted to date him. That was the logical progression of a relationship, wasn't it? Why try to force something? The entire exercise was as bewildering to me as it was intimidating. I already knew what I wanted: Love. _Real_ love, not someone to fill the void for the time being. Someone who understood me but loved me anyways. Someone to build a life with. Maybe I should get a dog.

The front of the yard was entirely weeds and grass, with no driveway yet to speak of, but the house was already something out of a magazine. It was a two-story farmhouse with a porch that stretched across the front and around one side, where an old swing hung forlornly, one rope having snapped long ago. Huge swathes of the exterior had no paint, with one wall displaying several foot-wide squares of different colors, all side-by-side. The high-pitched screams of an electric saw nearly busted my eardrums as I cautiously climbed the stairs to the doorless front entrance.

"Hello?"

Stained canvas covered most of the floor, along with empty fast food containers and buckets filled with God-knows-what, and I could hear our terrible local rock station echoing from somewhere inside.

"Hellooo?" A mess of black hair poked out from the next room.

"Bella?"

Before I could react, I was being crushed to death by Baby Seth.

"Guys, it's Bella!" he shouted over my gasps for air.

In strolled the other three, shirtless and grinning like cheshire cats. They were huge. I could scarcely recognize Quil and Embry but for their goofy faces that must have been frozen in time. Following close behind was Jake, frantically wiping his hands on his jeans, which were torn at the knee and stained with paint and dust. They were basically still kids the last time I saw them, but now they were all at least a foot taller and cut like underwear models. I tried not to notice. Ogling guys that I played Candyland with felt vaguely like incest.

"Long time no see!" said Quil. "Sorry, I'd hug you, but I'm pretty grody at the moment."

"Seth already broke the seal," I replied. Seth smiled sheepishly. "Bring it in, guys. I'll shower."

They were unmistakably damp, but miraculously, they did not smell like the unwashed ass I was expecting. There had to be some kind of black magic going on at the Quileute reservation.

"It's so good to see you guys. What have you been up to?"

"Our boy Quil here got engaged in December," Embry said, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Oh, wow. Congrats! What's her name?"

"Claire," Seth butted in. "And she's too good for him." Quil glared back at them.

"Do you mind?"

"I guess I'll have to meet her and judge for myself."

"Funny you should mention that," said Seth. "The Clearwater Clan is actually throwing a little party for them. You should come, Bella."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!" Embry chimed in. "It'll be a blast."

"Nothing fancy. Just a barbecue in the backyard, but you'll get to see everyone all at once. Claire and the other girls want to meet you, don't they guys?." Quil gave Jake a hard thump on the back, eliciting a sharp look from the corner of his eyes.

I couldn't argue. It was the perfect opportunity to get all my greetings and apologies done at once, hopefully letting me get back to some sense of normalcy with my rez family sooner rather than later. I needed to meet the girls who had stolen the hearts of these unrepentant goofballs.

"Well, if you're sure, then I'd love to."

"Awesome!" Seth tried to break my ribs for a second time. "It's on the 7th at five."

"Assuming Jake lets us out of the salt mines," Embry groaned, lifting up a box filled with dozens of pvc pipes and fittings.

"Hey, you're getting paid, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but the french maid outfits were a bit much."

"Out," Jake barked, shooing the Wonder Twins back to their posts with a crack of the twisted rag from his back pocket while Seth and I watched in amusement.

"How often are you guys working over here?" I asked, leaning in so I could lower my voice over their braying.

"It was just once a week here and there, but now it's most weekends."

"Damn, really? That's a lot. And you don't kill each other?"

"Not yet," he chuckled. "He decided to ramp up the schedule last month, and since we could all use the extra cash, we're basically part-timers now."

"What inspired him?" I wondered aloud. Seth shrugged.

"Got some kind of wild hare up his ass. He was going at a snail's pace for months, and now all of a sudden he wants it done before the summer."

"Probably the heat," I mused.

"Probably."

'What're you two whispering about over there?" Jake called. He wandered back to us, having doled out the punishment to his satisfaction.

"I was just telling her about your burgeoning anime figurine collection."

"Yeah," added, trying not to keep a straight face. "Is the Bulma one really undressable?"

"You want some of this too, Clearwater?" he said, twirling the rag in a playful threat.

Seth dodged the first snap, planting a kiss on my cheek as he fled the scene.

"Later, Bella."

"Damn kids." Jake rolled his eyes, shaking it off with a new smile. "So, how about the grand tour?"

"Yes, please."

He led me through the living room, where the oak floors were being resurfaced, winding through the house as I admired his handiwork and tried not to break anything, myself included. The master bedroom was spacious and freshly mudded, with windows overlooking the yard and topped with handsome flourishes of stained glass. There were two more bedrooms that were somehow in better shape than the first, and then there was the kitchen. I was almost salivating over his plans for it, from the cabinets, to the gas stove, to the tile backsplash, which was possibly original, that he discovered under a layer of wallpaper and planned to restore. His enthusiasm was infectious, not that I needed any prodding on that account; He would gesticulate broadly to illustrate his plans for the closets or the bannister, then I would ooh and aah and offer suggestions, which only seemed to energize him more. I could have done it all day. I didn't like to admit it, but HGTV was effectively porn in my world, and this was really doing it for me.

"What's the verdict?" he asked as we leaned against the stretch of porch railing that didn't have wood rot.

"Jake, this is beyond amazing."

"Yeah?" He beamed.

"Really."

"I'm glad you like it. It's a pain in the ass, but it'll be worth it once it's over."

"More than worth it; It'll be gorgeous. I'm so jealous."

And not entirely in a way I was interested in acknowledging. Vanessa better have been the goddamn Iron Chef to get a kitchen like that. In fact, I was about ninety-percent sure that no one but me could truly appreciate such a monument to the craft. This was Barbie's La Push Dream House, complete with Ken, only nobody would ever mistake me for Barbie. As happy as I was for Jacob, the house gave me an eerie feeling that he was rapidly approaching a turning point in his life, and I would fall even further behind.

"You're already looking at paint colors?" I asked, nodding towards the squares painted into the siding. "It's a little early, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I figured more time to mull it over couldn't hurt, right?"

I walked over to inspect his selections: two shades of buttery yellow, two of white, a sagey green, and three blues. To no one's surprise, my eyes immediately gravitated towards the blues. The names seemed to be scrawled onto the wood in sharpie in what could only be Jake's chicken-scratch. One, the palest and most reminiscent of the sky, caught my attention.

"I like this one. What's it called? 'Winter's Kiss'?" I snorted.

"I was between that one and that yellow one...Uh…'Marigold Fields.'"

"That would be pretty, too. I'm just biased, I guess."

Blue bedroom walls, blue bedspread, blue phone case, blue backpack. I was blue, just like the song.

"How're things going?" he asked.

Ugh. Reality, again?

"Good." Limp, and totally unconvincing. "I've got wheels now." I pointed to Rosie.

"I heard. Now you just have to pass your driver's test. When's your curfew?"

"Don't mock," I said, swatting at him in indignation. "Though you're not far off. If I ever tell you I'm thinking of working at the Newton's store again, I want you to shake me until I come to my senses."

"It's not gonna come to that," she said with a reassuring smile. "You'll find something worthy of your resume. You're a hot commodity." I scoffed. Fine, I'd indulge him.

"Oh, really? My entire high school dating life would beg to differ." He raised an eyebrow.

"Bells, you always had guys interested in you in high school."

"Mike Newton doesn't count."

"Justin Campbell, Matt Landry, the kid from Lebanon, Eric for most of sophomore year…" He trailed off, counting on his fingers.

"Wait, really?"

"...Wow, that explains a lot."

"Explains what?"

He rested his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look him dead in the face. I could feel his frustration, or maybe it was just the way his jaw tensed whenever he was annoyed, but there was something else emanating from him that I just couldn't place. Perhaps it was because I'd gone so many years without much more than a goodbye hug, but the bare skin under my tank top was beginning to feel hot.

"Bella, you are the most intelligent, talented, beautiful person I've ever met. You are also really dumb sometimes."

I blushed. I had no idea what to do with that, or this odd tension between us which was...not unwelcome. His eyes flickered down to my neck, which was no doubt turning pink as well, before dropping his hands and seeming to laugh the whole thing off.

"I should probably get back."

"Oh, of course," I stammered, like the idiot I was. "I didn't mean to keep you."

"No, you're fine, Bells."

He swept me into a quick one-armed hug and walked me to the porch steps to say our goodbyes. I spent most of the ride home meditating on whether I imagined that or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating sooner. I had to circle back on my outline for this one and finishing up My Guy is slowly sucking out my soul, but in a good way. Once it's done, I'll be updating The Pact much more regularly.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you like the story so far, please leave a comment or some kudos!


	4. Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dumb and dumberer

By the time I got home, I decided to just shake it off. Jake being Jake, all smiles and jokes until something randomly set him off enough to be serious. It was sweet, though, and well intentioned, just like him. I seriously needed someone to take a bike pump to my self-esteem, because that shit was flat and not going anywhere. Instead, I was going to focus on more important things, like my bank account and its dwindling contents. 

Clicking the “Make Payment” button on my loan website was always the low point of my month, and just pulling up the website sent stomach acid bubbling up to my throat. In second place was my bank statement. I quit my job as an office assistant about six months into grad school because full-time hours were proving too much for my delicate lady-brain. Edward, trying to be supportive, I suppose, assured me that he could take care of everything if I quit to focus entirely on school, and given my exhaustion at the time, I leapt at it. I didn’t have any living expenses anymore, but now I had no income of my own and a hole in my resume. Way to think things through.

I was in the middle of making breakfast for Charlie and I when the phone rang. I wished he would get rid of the damn thing already. Stepping away from the bacon, I pulled the receiver off the wall with an agitated huff.

“Swan residence.”

“Bella? It’s me I--”

I slammed the phone back into its cradle. Nope. Not today, Satan. I knew it was only a matter of time before Edward’s overtures began, but I was still hoping that “never” was a possible outcome.

“Easy there,” Dad grunted, eyeing me from over his newspaper. “That thing’s an antique.”

“Dad, you bought it in ‘83. Unless you think Mila Kunis is ancient, it’s not antique.”

“Jesus, Bella. Who was on the other end? The IRS?”

“Worse.” I stalked back over to the frying pan, which had begun smoking in my absence, and added the bacon with a little more aggression than was called for. “So it begins,” I muttered. I did _not_ need this right now. Or ever, really.

“Ah.” 

“He hasn’t called before, has he?” 

“I don’t think so,” he answered. “What do you want me to say if I pick up and it’s him?”

“Nothing, preferably. Anything else would only encourage him.”

“Works for me.” He returned to the sports section without another word while I imagined throwing Edward’s entire stereo system off our 9th story balcony.

I scrolled through my phone while nibbling on a piece of toast. Nothing interesting going on in the world and no good news in my inbox. Time to cheer myself up.

 _Me:_ _Hey Jake, how’s it been?_

I set my phone down and began tearing the bread in half when my phone buzzed.

 _Jake:_ _Pretty good. I’m taking the day to get more done at the house._

_HBU?_

I smiled and licked the butter off my fingers.

 _Me:_ _Same old, same old. What’re you guys working on today?_

 _Jake:_ _Finishing up the plumbing. They’ve been bitching about getting_

_a real toilet._

_Me:_ _I would be too, if I were them._

As I commenced scrubbing out the breakfast pans, I was struck with a brilliant idea to fill the day and maintain my sanity.

When I pulled up to the house, Jake was pacing on the porch with his phone glued to his ear while his hourlies loafed around. He hung up with a muttered curse.

“Hey, Bella!” the boys called, making Jake finally look up from his phone.

“Sorry, bad time?” I asked, readjusting the shopping bags straining my shoulder. He shook his head.

“For the construction industry, but not for you,” he said. “Stressful morning.” He turned to the guys. “That was the delivery guy. He said they got lost and ended up halfway to Port Angeles. They won’t be here until 2 at the earliest.” 

“Fantastic,” said Quil, rising to his feet. “Guess it’s lunchtime then.”

“I’ve got something that might cheer you guys up.” I wrangled my bags and offered them to Quil. “I brought lunch.” Their faces lit up like Christmas. Too easy.

“Really?”

They cleared the distance between us in milliseconds, eagerly rifling through my bounty, while Jacob trailed behind.

“I’ve got meatball subs, some chips, and fruit in case you felt like pretending to be healthy.”

“Wow, Bells. You made us lunch?” Jake asked, his face now set back its default setting, though oddly surprised. It made me wonder if it was weird for me to show up out of the blue like this. I felt myself blush.

“Yeah. I missed you. And the guys,” I quickly corrected. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, choosing to thank me before retrieving his share. 

“Bella, this is amazing,” Embry said through a mouthful. “Will you marry me?”

“You can’t have her. She’s mine!” Seth slapped Quil on the back to dislodge a bit of bread that he nearly inhaled.

“Now, now boys,” I scolded playfully. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. You’re all just going to have to take turns.”

They erupted into scandalized “Oooh”’s, and I laughed along with them. I took up residence beside Seth on the steps.

“I guess you were right, Jake,” I said, prodding him and wiggling my eyebrows. “I _am_ a hot commodity.”

“Told ya.” 

I never got tired of that good-natured smile. It was one of the things I liked most about being home again. Though lately, I found I wasn’t getting tired of looking at him in general. In fact, as I watched them clean up and busy themselves with trivial nonsense around the house, I caught myself staring at him more than once. Months of manual labor had been inordinately kind to him. The old white t-shirts he wore while they worked were constantly riding up his stomach, exposing hard lines etched into his torso. He had to be working out, too. If construction alone did that to people, then every plumber I ever hired would look like one of The Village People. He was concentrating very hard on some tiny bit of hardware in the wall, biting down on his full lower lip as a single bead of sweat rolled down his temple. It suddenly felt like the room was getting hotter.

My indulging did not escape notice.

“A picture’ll last longer, Bella,” Embry quipped in that bratty tone. I quickly snapped back to awareness.

“Hmmm?” Jake looked over his shoulder to investigate.

“Sorry, I just...spaced out.” Desperate to escape further scrutiny, as well as the cocky glimmer in Jake’s eyes, I extracted myself from the situation with a lame excuse. “I’m just going to go check in with Charlie,” I said, wiggling my phone at them before power-walking to the safety of my tailgate.

What kind of lonely, depraved person was I to be practically leering at my best friend? I felt like I needed a second shower. Yes, the man was hot. Unreasonably hot. So much so, that I was certain he regularly contributed to car accidents caused by gawking drivers. That Jacob Black, my best friend and childhood playmate, was the most attractive man I’d ever seen was simply a fact. Objectively. Now that I was acknowledging it, I could just accept that this was the reality I was living in, and move on.

The only thing that felt more gross was the thought that I missed Edward. The sad truth was that you don’t spend over a decade with someone and then make a clean break. This was all jagged edges and loose threads, catching on my fingernails and reminding me of the good things we had before. Our vacation in Italy. Our first apartment. Our college graduation. Our first kiss. The bitterness and spite was still there, but sometimes I wondered if it was overblown and honestly, it was exhausting to feel that way all the time. To my brain, this was the ultimate betrayal. This was supposed to be “I Will Survive,” not “I Will Always Love You.”

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Hey!” The voice behind me made me jump. “Everything alright, honey?”

“Yeah,” I said, hopping down and making my way back towards the house. “Charlie says hi.” Jacob squinted at me as I approached, a confused smile playing on his lips. I knew that smile. It meant that I had lost my marbles, and he was going to use it as teasing fodder at some point in the near future. He was definitely right about the first part. I needed to get a grip.

“Are _you_ alright?” 

“Well, there’s been some debate about that.” I laughed nervously.

There was a concerted attempt to go back to acting like a normal person, but in my hormone-induced stupor, I missed the edge of the stairs. I would have hit the deck had it not been for Jake. He caught me around the ribs, his biceps bulging as he effortlessly lifted me up again and onto my feet. 

“Wow, some things never change, huh?” he said with a smirk. “Hurt anything?”

“Just my pride. Thanks, by the way.”

“Any time,” he chuckled. His eyes seemed to sparkle whenever he laughed. Maybe it was just the light. It was awfully beautiful, though.

“What am I going to do with you?”

He reached out, gently brushing away a lock of hair that had fallen over my face. The rest of my hair suddenly stood on end, and my breathing slowed to almost nothing. He was staring at me, and I was staring right back. I could almost hear the buzz of my brain short-circuiting.

“Sorry to interrupt...”

How long had Quil been standing there? When I looked down, I discovered that my hand was still on his hip. I yanked my hand away, stepped back, and tried not to think about what that must have looked like. Despite the enormous strain he must have been under to keep himself in check, Quil’s face remained extremely punchable, his lips pressed together to keep from laughing. A deep blush shot upwards from my chest to the top of my head. I was fully prepared to go fling myself off the nearest cliff, preferably one with sharp rocks at the bottom. Maybe some sharks, too. Just to be safe.

“...but the delivery guy just called back. He’ll be here in ten.”

“Oh, great,” replied Jacob. He swallowed. Now it really was time to escape.

“Well, I’ll just get out of your hair then,” I said, already inching towards my getaway car. “I’ve got to go run a couple of errands before my dad gets home.” Jake wiped his forehead with the back of his arm.

“Sure, sure.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow night though, right Bella?” asked Quil.

Shit. For a minute, I’d been so busy planning my own funeral that I forgot about the barbecue. Impeccable timing, as always.

“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” I called as I slid back into the driver’s seat.

As punishment, I sent myself to my room to think about what I did. I landed face down onto my pillow, releasing a hoarse scream into the down filling. What was supposed to lift my mood had instead turned me into both a bumbling moron _and_ a pervert. Maybe a stint at a convent would straighten me out and let me lay low for a while. It worked for Whoopi, didn’t it? Dad knocked softly on the door frame.

“...Something happen with Jake?” 

“Yes,” I replied, my voice muffled. 

“You wanna talk about it?” He wasn’t very good at talking about things, but he was a decent listener, at least. But this definitely crossed the line in terms of things you should and shouldn’t discuss with your father.

“Not particularly.”

“Alright,” he grunted. “I’ll order Chinese. You still like kung pao chicken?”

I finally rolled my head to the side to look at him, and managed a weak but grateful smile.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks, Dad.”

He didn’t press any further that evening, which was theoretically a good thing. I probably should talk to someone about this, but all the usual candidates were either involved or should definitely not be involved. Tv and takeout was a very appealing choice for this very reason. 

Needless to say, there was no way in hell I was going to walk into the party unarmed, and armed I was. I arrived at the barbecue with three aluminum pans of the legendary peach cobbler for which I was once revered as a goddess, enough to feed a small island nation and hopefully this crowd. Once the preliminary greetings were out of the way, I couldn’t tell if they were happier to see me or my cargo. I had barely enough time to snag a drink from the cooler before the madness began.

What followed was a never-ending receiving line of old family friends who, by all outward appearances, seemed happy to see me. Paul had certainly mellowed out since I’d last seen him, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Rachel was a veritable lion tamer, and having a toddler will teach anyone patience. Sam and Emily’s kid was almost in middle school, another painful reminder of my age, and was busy chasing after her younger cousins in the grass further afield, among them Hannah, Kim and Jared’s daughter. I was introduced to Sue’s new boyfriend, then Seth’s girlfriend, and Embry’s, and Leah’s. Then, it dawned on me: I was the only single person at this party, that is, the only single person at the party who wasn’t also currently obsessed with _Peppa Pig_. Horrified, I chugged what remained of my soda and reached for something stronger. Red wine. Perfect. I might have been alone, but I could at least swirl it around and look like a sophisticated, cosmopolitan woman who was alone by choice.

Enter Jacob, pushing Billy along the gravel path that wound around the house from the front, otherwise unaccompanied. Was I relieved, or was I disappointed? The jury was still out. I tried not to walk over too quickly, but he met me in the middle anyways with a hug that lifted me off the ground as if I weighed nothing. Feeling his bulky arms around me triggered a memory of his sun-drenched form the last time we saw each other. He could probably bench press two of me without breaking a sweat. He smelled different, too. Cologne? Wait, why was I huffing his neck? I should slow down on the wine.

“Hi, guys!” I gasped as he put me down. “Fashionably late, I see.”

“Someone was hogging my shower,” Billy replied with a sideways glare. “Too busy primping to give his old man the bathroom.”

“I had drywall dust and plaster in my hair, Dad. You practically need a belt sander to get that shit out.”

“Well, next time go out back with the pressure washer.”

“So…Is this everyone?” I asked, surveying the group, master of the segue. Jake started to get a little shifty-eyed, looking back over his shoulder.

“Uh, no. Actually, we’re waiting for--Oh, here she is!” He broke into a smile as she bounded over to him from the back door. “Bella, I want you to meet Vanessa.”

She was cute. Infuriatingly cute. Her long, dark brown tresses came almost down to her waist. Pale, petite, and rosy-cheeked with petal-pink lips that looked like they were physically incapable of frowning. Her outfit was pitch-perfect too: dark jeans and a simple top that probably looked like nothing on the rack, but pure genius on her. I noticed she was an inch or two shorter than me. Seeing her standing right next to Jake, I wondered how that worked….logistically.

“Please, call me Nessie!” she said, offering her hand. “It’s so good to finally meet you. Jake’s told me all about you.”

Who the hell named her after the Loch Ness Monster?

“Only bad things, I hope.” She giggled. I was surprised at how much I sucked at trying to be cool and casual. 

“I’m sorry I’m late. I hit some traffic on the way over.”

“No worries, honey.” He kissed her on the temple, and a muscle in my eye twitched. “We were late, too.”

“I brought my peach cobbler,” I blurted out. One minute in, and I was already turning into a complete spaz. I wondered if there were any rakes laying around for me to step on. Let’s turn this whole thing into a Buster Keaton routine.

“Oh, man,” Jake groaned. “I’ve been jonesing for your cobbler for years. I hope you hid it from the guys so Nessie will get to have some. It’ll change her life.”

“I put a padlock on the fridge.”

“Wow, now I’m excited,” she said brightly. “You’ll have to share the recipe.”

“Good luck,” Billy huffed. “She won’t tell anyone, not even me.”

“Ancient Chinese secret,” said Jake with a wink.

“Oh, do you cook, Nessie?”

“Not really,” she replied with a shy smile. “I want to learn, though. I’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows lately.”

“Well, you’ll have a great kitchen to learn in.”

“Oh?” She cocked her head to the side. I nodded.

“Definitely. Miles of counter space and a killer gas stove? It’s going to be amazing when it’s finished.”

“Oh...you showed her the house?” she asked him. He stiffened ever so slightly.

“Yeah, she came over last week when I was working on it with the guys.”

I wanted to add “And yesterday too, you dingbat.” The odd tone to their exchange made me think better of it. 

“Where did you end up landing on the stain for the floors?” I asked. He hesitated.

“I think I’m going to go with the cherry. You were right; the white oak would look too washed out.”

“The contrast will work better with all that natural light,” I agreed. “You should text me a picture of the shades you’re looking at.”

“Sure, sure.”

I could feel Vanessa’s eyes bouncing back and forth between us like she was watching the Williams sisters. She linked her arm around his, her little fingertips cupping his bicep.

“Well, we should probably go make the rounds,” she said abruptly, flashing another sweet smile. “It was really nice meeting you, Bella. Say hello to Charlie for me.”

“I will,” I stuttered. “And it was nice meeting you, too.”

I watched them go off in search of the happy couple, feeling a strange mix of unease and disappointment. Billy stayed behind with me. I finally let out that breath I’d been holding in.

“Over my dead body is she getting my cobbler recipe,” I growled under my breath. I needed to bite my tongue before my inner monologue outed me as the catty person I was at that moment. I turned to Billy.

“So she seems nice.” Billy just laughed at me. Perhaps it was too late to worry.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just funny to watch, is all.” I sighed. Maybe I was being catty. You’re an adult, Bella. Act like it. Be happy for Jake. Still, getting a second round of weirdness from a father figure was putting me in a weirder mood.

“How long have they been together?” I asked innocently.

“Hmmm, I want to say about ten months. Not quite a year, for sure.”

“Interesting. She really does seem nice though,” I assured him, desperate to prove that I wasn’t an asshole.

“Yeah, she’s a sweet girl.”

“And pretty.” My penance would be to say as many nice things about her to Billy and Jake as I could. His gaze was suddenly very far away.

“He certainly has a type.” Guess she wasn’t the first one he’d brought home, but it looked like she was the one that stuck. I couldn’t deny that they were a cute couple. She was lucky to have him. Any woman would be. He was undeniably the whole package.

“They look cute together,” I said. “He’s doing so well with his promotion, she’s got a great career of her own, they have that gorgeous house. It’s a nice picture. Like a Christmas card.” Billy gave me the same piercing look that Charlie did, and I could still decode neither. I was sufficiently frustrated already with all the holes and blind spots in my knowledge, and having both of them look at me like I was a complete moron wasn’t helping.

“It should have been you.”

And he wheeled himself away without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off to a great start. In the next chapter, things get a little too real in more ways than one.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you like the story, please leave kudos and share your thoughts in the comments! You guys keep me going.


	5. Selfish

After two weeks of mostly peaceful sleep, a single night of staring at the ceiling hit me hard. The party continued as expected, but now there was this bizarre tension emanating from the Blacks that had me on edge for the remainder of the night.

_“It should have been you.”_

I didn’t know what to do with that then, and I still didn’t now. When I was a kid, there was a silly little joke between Charlie and Billy that Jake and I should get married so they could be officially related. It was mostly just embarrassing, and as we became teenagers, the joking ceased. It never occurred to me that there was any amount of seriousness to it until now. I rolled over.

My tattle-tale eyes kept wandering their direction over and over again. Even when I turned around, or when I was talking to someone else, my subconscious was dragging me back to Jake and Vanessa. I camped out with the boys, who regaled me with colorful stories from their jobs and their college days. But then my eyes would eventually veer off course to see her holding his hand or his arm around her shoulders, and it would ruin my mood again. I allowed myself some chicken and another soda before excusing myself for the night with a broad wave to everyone. I didn’t feel like talking to the two of them again.

_“It should have been you.”_

I rolled over and punched my pillow back in shape. Okay, maybe part of me agreed with him on some level. For my entire childhood, I understood that Jake and I were supposed to be together, that our lives were intrinsically linked, inseparable, non-negotiable. I never thought about what that would mean when we eventually grew up and met someone. That level of intimacy would never work with another person in the mix. One of us would have to go. It looked like it was going to be me.

I didn’t know what to say to Jake after that. He was way too perceptive not to notice that something was up, and I’m sure his girlfriend had words for him once they left. Between sighing and self-flagellating over my lack of success in the job hunt, I was also agonizing over the situation with Jacob. The angel on my right shoulder, the devil on my left, both duking it out for some kind of resolution.

On the one hand, I had absolutely no right to get my panties in a twist over this. Any whining over having to “share” was hypocritical; There was no “sharing” when I was with Edward. I just dropped off the map, alone but for him and his family. I let that happen. I let him consume everything, cutting myself off from everyone and making the bed that I currently laid in. Furthermore, I would not let my baggage interfere with his relationship. If he was happy, then I was happy, and I needed to keep my selfish feelings to myself. I was going to fix my credit score _and_ my karma, damn it.

On the other hand, this girl wasn’t right for him. I could see it from the second she walked in. First, she looked a little young. I didn’t check her driver’s license or anything, but I was only about fifty-percent sure she was old enough to remember the Y2K. Second, she didn’t cook. It may have seemed like a weird thing for me to fixate on, but there was no other way to keep all 200-plus pounds of Jacob fed and happy with take out and spaghetti from a jar. It was safe to assume that she didn’t know anything about the tribe or their traditions, which was going to be a major problem, since he always said he wanted his kids to grow up knowing their culture. She wouldn’t want to live out here, anyways. She was from the city. She’d get bored in a heartbeat.

I shoved my earbuds in and cranked up the volume, hoping that the vacuum and the music would be enough to drown out these ridiculous thoughts I was having. What was wrong with me? I was obsessing over a perfectly nice person who had done nothing wrong. I never thought I was the type.

“Uh, Bella. I think that spot’s clean now.”

“Hmmm?” I looked down and noticed that I’d been vacuuming the same corner on the carpet for the last five minutes. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

“Are you alright, kiddo?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been kind of ‘off’ for the last couple days. Did something happen again?” I gave up on cleaning for the moment.

“No--Well, yes. Kind of. I don’t know.” He waited, slurping coffee from his mug while he watched me do battle with the cord. “I met the girlfriend.”

“I see.”

“It was kind of weird. I don’t think she likes me.”

“Why, did she say something?”

“No, she was totally nice,” I said, not entirely believing it myself. “It’s just this look she gave me when Jake and I were talking about the house. I don’t think he told her that I came to see it. We barely got three sentences in about the floors before she pulled him away. I swear, she didn’t let go of him again for the rest of the night.”

“Hmmm,” he grunted. “Sounds a little...territorial. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re ‘The Famous Bella.’ You two have a history. Any girl he dates is going to see you as a threat.”

“Pfft, ‘history.’” I rolled my eyes and wheeled the vacuum back into the closet. Dad continued sipping. “That’s crazy. Everyone knows Jake and I were never like that. It hardly makes me a threat.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he drawled. I collapsed onto the couch, my lower back already screaming from the angle I’d been standing at.

“So what, are you saying I just have to accept that she’s never going to like me because she thinks I’m going to steal her boyfriend?” I could feel a rant coming on already. “That I’m going to have to deal with weird, passive-aggressive bullshit for the rest of my life? Am I in high school again? That’s not how this works. She doesn’t get to keep him all to herself. I knew Jake first. I have dibs.” Charlie snorted, and wandered back into the kitchen. 

“Guess she’s not the only one feeling territorial,” he said dryly. I had officially lost my mind. Perfect. Now I was alone _and_ crazy. I rifled through my purse and took my pill. I don’t know why I still bothered with it. Optimism, I guess. After inspecting the blister pack, I was reminded that this was probably hormone-related. As much as I hated people attributing bad behavior or reckless displays of emotion to the current state of their uterus, I was prepared to let myself have this, just this once. It was better than thinking about, ugh, _Nessie_. Or Edward. Or my life.

Charlie had already dozed off in his recliner when the landline began ringing. I hesitated. It was either a telemarketer, my ex, or a voice telling me I was going to die in seven days. Of the latter two, I wasn’t sure which one I would have preferred. With a sigh of resignation, I answered.

“Swan residence.”

“Bella?” 

Yep. Loving my luck lately.

“Oh Bella, I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.” His mouth was moving a mile a minute, tripping over his words, trying to force them all out before I changed my mind and hung up.

“I don’t know I could have done that to you, but please know that she meant absolutely nothing to me. I’ll do anything to make this right. We’ll go to couples counseling. I’ll get help for myself, too. I’ll pay for everything. We can find a new apartment further south so you can be closer to Charlie, or even a house, if you want. Just please give me a chance to fix this. There’s no point in living without you.”

The man was groveling at my feet, and as tempting as it was to hock one back and spit in his face, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. He sounded miserable, which was good. If he didn’t, there was no way I would have bothered listening to his little spiel. It was becoming hard to justify completely cutting him off forever after so many years together. He sounded more than willing to try. Some couples survived cheating thanks to therapy and ended up coming out of it stronger than ever. The familiarity was comforting to me, and it wasn’t like I could do better, anyways. I would give it a shot, I told myself. If we fixed it, we fixed it. If we didn’t, then I could at least say I tried.

After a long silence, I decided to reply.

“Find a therapist less than an hour from Forks and make the appointment,” I said stiffly. “Call back with the time and address, and I’ll meet you.”

“Thank you.” The words burst out with a long-held breath. “Thank you. Of course. I’ll take care of it. I’ll see you--”

I hung up. With my hands now free, I saw that they were shaking. I couldn’t tell if I was being mature or an idiot by accepting his offer, but the deed was done. 

“Edward?” my father asked, yawning as he called into the kitchen. “I thought you weren’t talking to him.”

“He wants to go to couple’s therapy.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I said okay,” I answered quietly, feeling almost guilty at the admission. 

“Huh.” His eyes veered off onto the kitchen wallpaper, his best effort at not looking like he disapproved.

“Just--Can this stay between us, Dad? I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Alright,” he said easily, though somewhat confused. 

An effort to insulate myself against the shame of it all, the embarrassment. It was going to look like I was crawling back to him because I was weak and pathetic, and given the sympathetic reaction from the rest of Forks when I announced that we had split, I really wasn’t ready to hear a chorus of groans and disappointment if the news got out. If, and that was a big “if,” we got back together, I was going to put my foot down. I would call the shots. None of them would believe that. They wouldn’t understand. Even Angela wouldn’t understand. But more than anyone else on the planet, I did not want Jake to find out.

I arrived at the office second. I wasn’t late, but it was only with five minutes to spare before the appointment. The office was spotless, modern, all potted plants, soothing white walls, and ambient spa music hovering over the hushed voice of the receptionist. Edward’s choice was decidedly on-brand. Somehow, I was completely unprepared to see him there, sitting perfectly still with a book. My heart dropped into my stomach when he finally noticed me. I nodded quickly in acknowledgement before he could say anything.

I sat down a few seats away anxiously waiting for someone to come out so there could be an end to this intolerable tension. After the most excruciating three minutes of my life, two thirty-something guys emerged, cheerfully thanking the smartly-dressed woman. I watched them walk out, speaking warmly to each other as the tall brunette held the door open for the other. Good advertising, if I ever saw any.

“Bella? Edward?” she asked softly after looking up from her clipboard. We stood up sharply and almost in unison. I froze, unsure of what to do, until he gestured for me to proceed first. I plopped down onto the little sofa opposite the armchair by her desk, and he joined me. Even when sitting as far away as possible, it was still too close. A loveseat. A practical joke.

“Welcome, welcome! I’m Dr. Addams.” She held out her hand to shake both of ours. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

She must have been in her late forties, with grey hairs gathering around her temples in her thick black curls. Her smile was sincere, forming dimples in her olive skin that reminded me of a baby. I found my heart rate easing its way toward normal again.

“So, I talked to you both a little on the phone so we could get to know each other before your appointment, and you said you’re here because of infidelity?” I swallowed.

“Yes.” The word “infidelity” felt like a euphemism, like she was trying to sugarcoat the very vivid memory of walking in on your boyfriend getting blown in his office by the head of marketing. I was getting nauseous. She looked to Edward for confirmation, and he nodded.

“Okay. Before we explore that further, I want to hear about you two and your relationship. How did you two meet, and how long have you been together?” I opened my mouth.

“Since high school,” he said. “We’ve been together for almost thirteen years.”

“ _Would have been_ ,” I quickly corrected. “We’ve been broken up since March. And technically, this isn’t the first time.” I heard him groan and lean his back on the leather sofa.

“Oh? You’ve broken up before?” she asked, jotting everything down.

“We were on a break,” he insisted. There was an unmistakable edge to his voice. “And it was five years ago!”

“ _Six_ years,” I countered, razor-sharp. “One of my oldest family friends, practically a father to me, dies suddenly, and what do you do? You decide to run off to Aspen with your brothers so you can go skiing!”

“The trip was planned months before and it was already paid--” I could hear my voice rising an octave as I jumped back in.

“Oh! And _then,_ I get to explain to my entire family why my boyfriend of six years wasn’t there holding my hand while they buried one of my father’s best friends, or about how I got into a fender-bender in my rental car on the trip down because I hadn’t driven in years and had nobody to drive me to the funeral.”

“I thought we were past this!”

“No, _you_ decided we were ‘past this’ when you decided to stop freezing me out after I said I wouldn’t forgive you just because you came home one week later instead of two!” I snapped. His eyes narrowed, and he threw his arms up in exasperation.

“I apologized! What the hell else did you want from me?”

“I wanted my boyfriend to give a shit that I was in the worst grief-pit of my life since Jake’s mother passed--” He bristled at the name. “--and not make everything about himself for once!”

“Okay, okay,” Dr. Addams interrupted, holding out her hands as if to physically bring this fight to a halt. “Let’s all take a breath, and then take a step back.” I folded my arms across my chest, refusing to look at him. My whole body was hot, and I became aware that I was probably pink all over from sheer anger.

“I’m hearing that you two were experiencing some problems long before the infidelity.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said blithely. She continued as if I hadn’t said anything. 

“Cheating is never the first sign that a relationship has problems. It’s a symptom, not the root cause. What I’m here to do is help you both discover that root cause and work through it. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s the only way to forgive and heal. The question is if you’re both willing to put in the work to get there.” We both nodded our assent. 

The session continued on for the next 45 minutes without us saying another word directly to each other. I’d been to therapy many times before, and that made having a blow-up like that in front of her all the more humiliating, because I at least knew what I was walking into. More aphorisms from the doctor, a few yes or no questions, some kind of “exercise” that involved changing seats and talking to imaginary people. I always hated that kind of thing. It felt more like a nightmare scenario at an improv show than a tool for personal growth. Ultimately, we left the office without speaking another word to each other, with no plans to do so until the next session.

If I was being honest with myself, which was part of my assigned emotional homework for the week, I didn’t actually think this was going to work. Dr. Addams was personable and seemed very competent at her job, but so were a lot of therapists I had before. It’s not that I was expecting the Blue Fairy to swoop in and make Edward a real boy. Rather, I knew from experience that she and I weren’t quite on the same wavelength, and that my enthusiasm was lacking. Why was I doing this again? Oh right, because I was lonely, and because I had it in my head that I was going to fix my problems rather than run away from them. That was responsible and mature. Maybe we would get lucky. If we patched things up, he’d listen to me and talk to me, and then I’d get everything I wanted. He’d finally agree to get married and move out of the city into a house, an old blue farmhouse with shutters and a big front porch and--

My thoughts were veering wildly off course and turning into daydreams about Jacob’s house. I wondered what the boys were working on now. Things had cooled off with him and I since the party, with only a few casual texts here and there to check in, comment on the fickle late spring weather, joke about something my dad said. I wasn’t necessarily afraid to go back to the house. It seemed that every time I saw him, I sank further and further into idiocy. Why? I was never like this before. He was easy. Jacob was always dumb jokes, a boost up, a blanket fresh from the dryer. Now, he was more like a double shot of espresso in one gulp. Being under his gaze made me blush. Close proximity made my heart race. That sly, teasing grin hit something in me that I forgot was even there. And then there was this aching that followed me everywhere since I saw them together, a feeling that grew stronger at night when I was alone in my bed. I began to consider a nagging possibility.

Absolutely not. I had to shut those thoughts down immediately. Under no circumstances was I going to even entertain the idea that my feelings for Jacob were something more than what they were. It was lunacy, and even if it weren’t, he was otherwise engaged. I winced at my poor choice of words. He was…very happy where he was. Suspending reality for two seconds to pretend I was in love with Jacob, I still wasn’t going to touch his relationship with a ten foot pole. That was responsible and mature. Maybe Vanessa would finally see that I wasn’t a threat and warm up to me, and then we could all happily coexist. 

Charlie’s heavy footsteps announced his arrival home for the evening. He sailed right in to find me on the couch with my laptop, my home away from home.

“Hey kiddo, how was your day?” He was a little too cheery for my current mood. 

“Same old, same old,” I replied glumly, scrolling through the job listings from yesterday in case I missed anything. “How about you?”

“A slow one, just how I like ‘em.” He slid off his work belt and hung it next to his hat. “Actually, I had an interesting visit from Lucille Bowers today.”

“Mrs. Bowers, like my old English teacher?”

“The very same. Apparently someone has been stealing her garden gnomes, but that’s a different story.”

I hadn’t thought about my high school English teacher since I graduated. I couldn’t believe she was still alive. She must have been about a hundred when I was seventeen, making me wonder if the gnomes were alive and pulling a _Weekend At Bernie’s_ on my father.

“Anyways, she let slip that she was retiring at the end of the year for her health, and the school is looking for a replacement.” My mouth popped open as I sat straight up, ironically finding my spine for the second time that week.

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope,” he said. “They’re looking for someone to teach summer school, too. My thought was that if you get the gig and they like you--”

“--They might take me on full-time.” I couldn’t believe my luck. All of this week had been spent ruminating on my personal and professional failures, and now everything was coming up Milhouse. “What do I do? Do I email them my resume? Call? Just show up? Oh God, I’m going to need new clothes, too.”

“Easy, now,” he said. “Maybe just give the office a call tomorrow.”

I hopped up and threw my arms around my dad, thanking him profusely.

“Nothing to thank me for. I’m just passing along some information to my extremely qualified daughter, is all.” He kissed my forehead and wandered into the kitchen, following his nose to the chili simmering on the stove. “See, I told ya you weren’t going to find anything sitting on that damn computer all day. You’ve gotta pound the pavement.” The second ‘P’ popped with the cap on his beer. I pursed my lips.

“Fine, you were right this time.”

“Cool. I haven’t gotten to be right since the nineties.”

Thrilled didn’t even begin to cover it. I was chicken-counting, for sure, but I needed this little dose of positivity. Following my first impulse, I snatched up my phone and swiped over to my text conversation with Jacob. Then I stopped. This felt weird. My premature celebration notwithstanding, I had this feeling that I shouldn’t, that I needed to back off in general. This was the sort of thing you shared with parents and boyfriends, and maybe regular friends if they inquire. Vanessa would probably read something into it, and then I’d get Jake in trouble, too. I tossed my phone onto the cushion in front of me, supremely irritated by the whole situation. 

Was this how it was going to be now? Constantly walking on eggshells to avoid setting off her radar? I hated her for ruining this for me. I finally had Jake back in my life again, and now she was here. This whole “sharing” thing was not going to work, not like this. I stewed over this for the rest of the night and into the morning. When my thoughts finally proved to be too much, I flew past my father and into the kitchen, where I began taking out my anger on a couple of pots from the night before that needed scrubbing.

“You’re in a mood,” he commented flatly. “What happened? You were over the moon about the job yesterday.” Shit. I needed to call them. Better I resolve this tension first.

“I hate her,” I growled over the running water. 

“Who?”

“Vanessa--sorry, _Nessie_ ,” I corrected, my voice dripping with disdain. What a stupid nickname “I hate her for ruining this. Things were supposed to be good between us again, and now it’s weird, all because she doesn’t like me. Right when things were going back to normal, I find out I can’t have a normal relationship with Jacob. I hate her.” I dumped out another soaking pot, splashing water onto my shirt. I didn’t care. I’d reached a zenlike state of pissed off where such trivial things couldn’t touch me. 

“Is this still about the party?”

“No, I haven’t heard from her since, but still. It was all in the subtext. All the smiley friendly stuff was garbage. She was only being nice to me to make Jake happy, knowing that she can just yank him away whenever she feels like it because she’s his girlfriend. And then I’m left standing here with a meatball sub in one hand and my dick in the other--” 

“Meatball sub?”

“--And Billy’s sitting there like, ‘It should have been you,’” I said, angrily mimicking Billy’s baritone. “I mean, what the hell was _that_ all about?” I smacked the last pot down on the drying mat to emphasize “that,” and promptly realized that I had basically been shouting my insane stream of consciousness at my father. I turned back to look at him. His eyes were wide, and he looked away, as if he was embarrassed on my behalf.

“Huh.” That was it. He stared out the window at the passing cars.

“What?” I looked at him expectantly.

“Nothing.”

“No, you said ‘huh.’ You wanted to say something.” Eyebrows raised, he continued to look away from me.

“I don’t know; Just doesn’t sound like this is really about her.” My fingertips dropped to the hem of my shirt, and I began absently trying to wring the dirty dishwater out.

“What else would it be about?” I huffed, giving up and resigning myself to having a large wet splatter on my stomach. When I looked up, he was staring at me, pointedly, waiting for me to get up to speed. Then something heavy landed in my stomach.

“Dad, come on.” My laugh came out wrong, sort of squeaky and laced with frustration. That alone was enough for me to turn on my heels and begin scrubbing out the sink. “Enough of you and Billy’s weird little fantasies. If you want to join our houses so badly, then marry each other.” He snorted and began sifting through the morning paper.

“Green-eyed monster,” he said in a low chuckle.

“What did you call me?”

“If it walks like a jealousy and quacks like a jealousy…”

“Okay, that’s it,” I announced, dumping the sponge unceremoniously into the sink. “You’re nuts, and I’m leaving. In that order.”

I grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and brought it back to my room. I dumped various sugar shapes into my gaping maw and tried to watch some show on my laptop. The crazy was not subsiding. After far too long, it occurred to me that this must be exactly what happened to Jake when Edward and I started dating, except Edward was never so subtle about it. Granted, seeing how their first meeting went, I wasn’t exactly expecting Edward to invite him camping. I was no treasure, either, I recalled. Head over heels, my head was so firmly lodged in my rectum that I only saw Jacob’s moodiness and snide comments as an annoyance. A rapid-onset personality flaw. A side effect of a stupid grudge and an unwillingness to play nice so that I could have my cake and eat it. But he was seventeen. What the hell was my excuse?

I didn’t like the way Charlie’s insinuations buzzed around my head. Swatting them away was doing me no good. No matter how hard I tried, or how much I really, really, _really_ did not want to open up this can of worms, nobody seemed to be giving me much of a choice. Against my better judgement, I set aside how completely preposterous I found the idea and let myself consider it.

The house? That was just the unhealthy fixation of a single woman in the twilight of her youth, one who read too many lifestyle magazines. He was literally building the kind of life I dreamed about and would probably never have. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t picture myself there on more than one occasion, but to say that this was a sign that I was somehow in love with him was a stretch, at the very least. Strike one.

The gawking? The jury had already rendered a verdict on that one: Jacob was objectively gorgeous. Six foot something with thick black hair that begged you to run your hands through it, every inch of his smooth chest looking like he’d been carved out of mahogany. Broad shoulders that could safely carry you while also taking out a fully grown grizzly. I was neither dead nor gay. And yet, his face was still that of the boy I grew up with. He had a wide smile for everyone, his jet eyes full of mischief, but unmistakably sweet, even on his stormier days. The one who sat with me in the ER while they set my broken arm and wrapped it in plaster. The one who skipped prom with me to go see _Pineapple Express_ because neither of us had dates. Taking this as a sign of non-platonic feelings was equally suspect. We just were extremely close, best friends since our _Sesame Street_ days. Strike two.

The girlfriend? I could obviously account for that one as well. I was being childish and over-dramatic. It was that simple. I selfishly wanted Jake’s undivided attention. It was immature, not to mention asking too much. I kept telling myself that it was impossible for him and I to just pick up where we left off, but part of me didn’t believe it. Rather, that part of me didn’t care. I needed Jacob like I needed air. That’s why I spent so many years unable to breathe. But that was my choice, and I could hardly blame him for moving on with his life. What, did I expect him to sit at home in the dark and miss me? I shouldn’t have thought that he would put his life on hold while he waited for me to stroll back into town. She was making him happy, and as his (best?) friend, it was my sworn duty to uphold that, even if it meant smiling and making conversation when what I wanted to do was put a pillow over her face. Friendship. Cheesy, curse-breaking, death-defying, Saturday-morning-cartoon-level friendship. Strike three.

But oh, how that idea stung. Forget the nausea; This felt like my heart was sinking, deflated, like a forgotten birthday balloon hovering in the corner. If only someone would pop it and put me out of my misery. I fell backwards onto my pillow with a tortured sigh, abandoning all hope of peace or breakfast. Even with all the facts laid out in front of me, I still felt the overwhelming urge to drag him away from her, to fight her off and not let her have him. I didn’t want to see them together again, but I was going to have to, over and over again, forever. I squeezed my eyes shut. That only made the image more vivid. There was nothing wrong with her. She was perfectly normal, probably a great person if I got to know her. We could even be friends if I behaved myself.

Clawing. Biting. Scratching. Tearing.

It was fine. I was fine. I could do that. I cared for him enough that I could take one for the team. But there were things I couldn’t account for. The heart palpitations when he looked at me, when his face was so close I could see the curl in his eyelashes.

Mine.

And then they would eventually get married, and I would come to the wedding, and watch them kiss, and make a toast featuring childhood anecdotes that would mortify him.

Clawing. Scratching.

My head was throbbing. I hated this. I hated all of this. There was a good reason why I’d kept this at bay for so long.

_Be honest with yourself._

I fucking hated _that_ most of all. I pulled myself to sit against the headboard and threw up my hands.

“Fine, I’ll play ball,” I snapped at the dog painting on the wall beside my bed. 

“Maybe this is all an elaborate excuse. Maybe I’m trying to explain all of this away. Maybe I’m just _that_ deep in denial. Maybe the whole reason I’m having some kind of psychotic episode right now is because Jake finally got his life together, but it’s with her and not me. Maybe I have all this pain in my chest because I hurt him so badly that I permanently damaged our relationship, and now I’m going to spend the rest of my life watching him love someone else.”

The painting stared blankly back at me.

_It should have been you._

  
  
  


“Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About damn time. Next chapter, we get a blast from the past from our boy.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Pathetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night to remember.

_Honk honk._

“Beeeells!”

I had learned to give Bella a minute’s warning when I arrived so she had a chance to throw on some shoes and a jacket before I had the chance to complain about her always running behind. It was a proven system; It had easily prevented about a hundred repetitive squabbles since the tenth grade, all revolving around her chronic lateness and my saintly patience. I saw a shape dart past the living room window as I slid out of my converted rabbit. I was pleasantly surprised by the span between knocking and the door wrenching open.

“Time?” she panted. 

“Eighteen seconds.”

“Crap, I’m still in double digits.”

“But you’re getting more consistent, so that counts for something. You ready?”

“Yeah let’s go.”

“--Hold up,” Charlie barked from the kitchen. He joined us at the door, half of a sandwich in hand, and began scrutinizing everything from his daughter to my baby, which still had its lights on. “Where is this party you’re going to?”

“Angie’s house.” He squinted.

“Are her parents home?”

“Yes.” 

Good girl. After almost fifteen years, I had finally taught her how to lie. It didn’t come to her naturally, and her big doe eyes gave us away more than once over the years. There was a certain innocence to Bella; It reminded me that there really were people out there without a duplicitous bone in their body, that you could always trust. It was one of many things that I loved about her.

“It’s supposed to be pretty low-key,” I added. “Probably just video games and stuff.”

“....Alright,” he said with trepidation. “Do you have your phone? Keys?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Wallet?”

“Yes.”

“Ass?” I chimed in, snickering and enjoying her turn getting the third degree.

“Hey!” he warned.

“Well you’re here now, so I guess I do.” She stuck out her tongue, making me laugh more and making Charlie give up the interrogation with a heavy sigh, waving us away.

“I want her home by midnight, Jacob!” he called through a mouthful of ham.

“Yes, sir!” I shouted back with a salute. He watched us sternly as we pulled out of the driveway, slowly and carefully, until he closed the front door. Then the real fun could begin.

I should clarify: The party was _technically_ at Angie Weber’s house, in that it was at _a_ house belonging to her parents. Her dad had a cabin for fishing and hunting way out of town, accessible by one private dirt road that ran about a quarter mile in, or by boat, if you were feeling adventurous. This wasn’t my first rodeo, but Bella was less thrilled with the idea of drinking mystery punch out of a five gallon bucket in the woods. After a little coaxing, I finally got her to agree to come with me, on the condition that I wouldn’t peer-pressure her into dancing. She scowled at me when I told her that depending on how much punch she had, that might not be necessary.

“Jake, you should slow down a little.”

“Hmmm?” I replied, pushing the gas just a tiny bit more.

“You’re going to hit something.” 

“What’s that?” I answered loudly over the revving engine. “I can’t hear you.”

“You’ll hit something! Like a dog or a deer or—Eeek!”

I hit the gas harder this time, making the engine roar as it lurched forward. She let out some unholy noise and groped blindly for my hand, which was on the wheel instead of its usual spot. That wasn’t necessarily why I liked to do that, though it was a major contributing factor. I merely laughed and let the car coast back to normal speed as we wound around the two lane roads through the mountains.

“Why do you do that?” she asked, frowning at me again.

“Because it’s funny when you freak out like that, and because the Chief won’t let you on the motorcycle and I think this feels pretty close.”

“He said they have this tool to scrape bodies off the pavement, like a giant spatula. Is that what you want?”

“If I say yes, will you chill?” She huffed in response. I glanced over to find her leaning back in the seat, eyes closed and still a little pink from the excitement. “Oh come on, Bells. You’re not going to be mad at me all night, are you? And leave me at Lauren’s mercy?”

Lauren had been trying to climb into my Easter basket for weeks with all the subtlety of a singing telegram, and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. It was more annoying than anything else, but that’s how rumors get started. I’m sure she cleared her schedule as soon as she found out I was going to this thing, probably hoping that I would get drunk enough to find her catty bullshit attractive. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to piss Bella off a little, though it likely stemmed from their long-standing animosity. This wasn’t an isolated incident, though. It was getting harder to shake off some of the interest I was getting, which I’ll admit I enjoyed, because what seventeen year old boy wouldn’t want to bask in so many offers to stroke his ego (or something else)?

“I’m not sadistic.” She gave me a crooked smile from the corner of her eyes, and I knew I was forgiven. “I’m just nervous, is all.”

“You’ve been to high school parties before. What’s there to be nervous about?” She shook her head.

“Nothing, I guess.” 

I knew that look. There was something on her mind, but she wasn’t going to tell me. That barrier had been growing for years, slowly, stone by stone, and though I was starting to accept that things were going to change with time, I wasn’t prepared for there to be secrets between us. Regardless, that looked like the way it was going to be.

When we arrived, the sun was just beginning to set. The walls of the house were buzzing with the base of whatever terrible dubstep was coming through the speakers. I didn’t count, but I was pretty sure that our entire grade was there, plus an assortment of seniors and rez kids, some of whom were currently littering the porch and the end of the dock that ran into the lake. Illicit night drinking and large, remote bodies of water; What could go wrong?

“Hey! Jake’s here!” boomed Mike from the tailgate of his truck, making the others turn to acknowledge us. What idiot parent buys their high school kid a tricked-out F-150? Follow up question: Who buys an F-150 for a kid who hates dirt and has nothing to haul? He wasn’t a bad guy, just an idiot, and I had to wonder if it was congenital.

“Hey!” I called back with a wave. Bells wasn’t paying attention, just cautiously taking in the scene around her. 

“C’mere! We need you to settle something.”

“Duty calls, I guess,” I grumbled.

“Somehow, I think you’ll survive,” she replied, shooing me away with a pat on my arm. Jessica and Angie found her pretty quickly. They beckoned, and she complied with much more enthusiasm than I expected. I didn’t hear half of what Mike was jabbering on about; I was a little distracted. I always hated for Bells to leave, but God damn did I love to watch her go.

The argument I was called in to assist with came down to a disagreement about whether it was Selma Hayek or Penelope Cruz who was in _Wild Wild West_. I have no idea why they thought I was the right person to set them straight, but there I was, trying very hard to act like I gave two shits. Predictably, it devolved into a different argument about which one was hotter. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the new kids sliding out of their black SUV’s without much talk or fanfare on their part. There was something really off-putting about them, but I was somewhat alone in that assessment. The guys had already formed an invisible queue in the event that one of the girls broke up with her boyfriend, barely one step away from taking tickets like a deli counter.

“I didn’t think they’d show up,” Eric said in a low voice, redirecting our attention.

“Yeah, dude. If my girlfriend lived with me, we’d never leave the house.”

“Nah, I think it’s weird,” I said. There was just something so creepy about the Cullens that I couldn’t put my finger on. They didn’t talk much with anyone else, and they were just weird in general, like homeschooled kids.

“Pot calling the kettle, Black. You and Bella practically live together,” Cody said. I rolled my eyes.

“No, we don’t. I just crash on the couch sometimes. That’s all.” 

I watched him and Eric exchange looks, the exact kind that I expected from them. Newton, true to form, was oblivious to the subtext and visibly pleased by my clarification. I knew what that meant. I was going to need to track Bella down at some point to warn her of what was to come. He had recently devoted both brain cells to getting her to date him, and she was too nice to just tell him to back off. I was hoping he would eventually take a hint, because I knew he’d be pissed at me forever if stepped in. Besides, she was a big girl. She was going to have to learn how to navigate this stuff when she left for college.

College. The light at the end of the tunnel that was this boring little town. Practically Valhalla. I spent half of my English classes imagining dorms and parties and independence. There was just one problem: There was a fifty-fifty chance that Bella and I would be going to different schools. I was stuck in-state, and she was still weighing the pros and cons of going someplace back East. I’d given her my two cents, but that didn’t knock her off the fence. My fingers were crossed that we would both end up at Washington State. How could I go from seeing her every day since preschool to just winter and summer breaks? The answer was that I couldn’t, and the whole thing had me twisted up in knots whenever I thought about it.

“Whatever, man,” Cody replied dispassionately, raising a plastic cup of mystery juice to his lips. “The pale one’s definitely weird. I don’t know why the girls are all falling at his feet.” Eric shook his head.

“It’s the emo guys. If the girls find out that he plays piano or writes poetry or something, we’re all screwed.” What a depressing thought. Bella had her own admirers, some of them even normal and not creepy, but I didn’t tell her that, partly because I wouldn’t have her undivided attention anymore, and partly because I wanted her for myself. 

So. 

Damn.

Bad.

Which brought me to my second problem: What the fuck was I going to do about _that_? I’d been in love with her since we were kids. Our friendship and the closeness of the Blacks and Swans was the red herring that (usually) kept the stupid questions at bay, though I know our parents weren’t under any illusions. As time went on, it got a lot harder to keep on the DL, and even harder to sit around hoping something in her brain would finally click and make her see me differently. Someone was going to catch her eye someday, and then it would be all over. No longer a matching set; just a pair and a spare.

The conversation alone made me uneasy. It was bad enough that I had Mike to worry about, and now Edward Cullen was haunting the party. He seemed like the exact type of creep she would go for, if her previous interests were any indication. She was far too trusting. I decided to go check on her before these guys completely bummed me out. It was time I found out what disgusting concoction they were serving tonight.

Ah, a keg. It was the kind of cheap garbage that I would develop a tolerance for, lest I spend my early twenties sober. I could have easily crushed two or three without so much as a buzz, but it wasn’t me I was thinking about. Squeezing through the people packed into the entryway, I strolled around casually, as if I wasn’t looking for anyone in particular. When I tracked her down, Bells was sitting on the arm of the couch, its faded 90’s floral print already bearing war wounds from our festivities. She’d visited the keg, sipping absently while she observed the dozen or so kids dancing.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down next to her. “Where’s Jess and Angie?”

“Girl’s room.”

“I thought girls always went to the bathroom together.”

“Three’s a crowd,” she said. “The bathroom is already a clown car.” 

“Unavoidable, I guess. You having fun yet?”

“You know, I think I actually am,” she replied with one of those tiny, almost embarrassed smiles that always looked cute on her. “This is pretty disgusting, though.” She looked disdainfully into the cup and took a large gulp, wrinkling her nose as soon as the stuff touched her lips.

“Do you want me to finish it for you?” She sighed and set it down .

“No, I should probably drink the whole thing and get the official high school party experience while I can. I’m pretty sure the only reason I was invited was because of Angie and Jess.”

“Not true. People like you, Bells. They’d sure as hell rather have you here than the Cullens.”

She immediately snapped out of her self-deprecating bullshit to look at me, her soft brown eyes even bigger than usual.

“ _They’re_ here?”

“Yeah, I guess they decided to crash the party. They’ll only get away with it because they’re new and people aren’t done slobbering all over them yet.” She let out a huff.

“Why do you hate them so much?” she asked, visibly annoyed with me. I was taken aback by her sudden defensiveness, especially over those freaks, but she was always one to give people the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t hate them; I just don’t like them, especially Ed. There’s something about them that makes my skin crawl.”

“You need to give them a chance.”

She didn’t say anything else, choosing instead to stare into the bottom of her cup before downing the rest of it. I wasn’t interested in giving them a chance. The bitterness in my voice probably put her off. Whatever. I’d make some stupid joke about one of the freshman boys, and then she’d be back to laughing in no time. I wouldn’t get the chance. She was still busy pouting when who should come strolling up to us but Ted Bundy himself, looking and smelling like he’d been chained up inside an Abercrombie for the last seventeen years. I watched her eyes immediately lock onto him, taking in a sharp breath as he approached, and that’s when I finally pieced it together.

_Shit._

“Hey.” His voice was smooth and cool as a cucumber, but unmistakably slimy to me.

“H-hey.”

“You’re Bella, right?” he asked. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m Bella, and this is Jake.” I received half a nod of acknowledgement before he returned his attention to her.

“You know, I see you in bio every day, but somehow we haven’t met yet, so I thought I’d come over and say hi. I’m Edward.” And a sleek smile to match. Effortlessly cool. We were barely a minute in, and I already wanted to punch him.

“Sorry,” she said with a nervous giggle. “I zone out in Molina’s class a lot.”

“Then you must be a science whiz if you’re passing his tests. My family just spent the last six months abroad in Italy, so I’m a little behind. I was thinking that maybe we could team up for that group project.” I didn’t want to hear this. As I made my escape, I heard her call out to me, and as always, I was compelled to answer.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna get something to drink.”

Why did it have to be him? Of all the jackasses in our school that she had to choose from, the weird loner with the unsettling stare was the one she went with. Newton would have made me want to drink undiluted bleach, but at least I knew what the guy was all about. I flexed my fingers, trying to undo the fist they had been clenched into as I left the scene for the cool night air. The breeze washed over me, and I realized just how heated my face was. Two fresh cups of beer later, I decided to rejoin the rest of the guys, who were still camped out by the tailgate and rehashing whatever _Family Guy_ gag had most recently shot soda out of their noses. The older we all got, and the more I listened to them, the more I felt like I was too old to be here, or maybe they had never matured past fourteen. Regardless, I stayed and listened, nodded, and threw in the occasional, “That’s crazy, man,” all to keep them occupied while I tried to cool off.

Seth, my cousin and a lanky sophomore that had attached himself to Mike like a lamprey eel for reasons that confound me to this day, spotted us and bounded over with his usual exuberance.

“Guys, you’re never going to guess what I just saw!”

“What?” Eric asked. He lowered his voice.

“I just saw Bella Swan making out with the new kid.”

Eric sucked in through his teeth and averted his eyes. I heard the crackling of plastic as I tried to wipe away the mental image, only to find my cup crushed and leaking in my hand. Was anywhere safe? The solution was to retreat again, this time to the dock. I didn’t know why I did this to myself. The mess I’d gotten into fell squarely within the category of “nut up or shut up,” and I had nobody else to blame for shutting up. I ran my fingers roughly through my hair, trying not to think about it. This was pathetic. I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for myself. I soon felt the vibrations of approaching footsteps on the splintered wood.

“Whacha doing?” cooed a nasally girl’s voice.

Jesus Christ, could I get a moment’s peace? And even worse, it was _her._

“I _was_ enjoying the quiet,” I said coolly. I was long past the point of being nice to Lauren. Uninvited, she swung her legs over the edge and sat beside me. I stared straight ahead and over the water.

“Aw, come on, Jake. Don’t be like that. Why are you so mean to me?” That baby voice she liked to put on was nails on a chalkboard.

“Because being nice hasn’t gotten me anywhere so far.” She giggled. Nothing I did seemed to put her off, not even my scowl.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood for this right now. Can you just go already?” She pursed her lips, scrutinizing what little of my face was visible in the moonlight.

“I saw Bella.” She paused, probably digging deep within herself for some tiny nugget of decency to waste on trying to get into my pants. “Sorry.”

“I’m not talking about this with you,” I replied sharply.

“I didn’t say I wanted to talk about it.” I sighed heavily in frustration.

“Then what do you want?” A mischievous smile played on her lips. She leaned in close, and I could feel her breath on my ear, causing an involuntary shiver. Her hand slid onto my thigh.

“What I want,” she began, her voice low and sultry. “Is to help you forget.” I turned to look at her, glaring daggers and poised to tell her off, but that was a mistake. Our noses brushed past each other, and suddenly her lips were on mine.

My first instinct was to shove her off, or better yet, into the lake, until I caught something I hadn’t before, a familiar smell. I inhaled sharply. It was the same perfume Bella had been wearing, the scent of warm vanilla and sugar that always made my mouth water. For the next five seconds, I wasn’t kissing Lauren. A low moan escaped her mouth, and the incongruity with the voice I wanted to hear instantly snapped me back to reality. I pushed her away.

“Goddammit, no!” I growled, staggering to my feet. I stalked away, wiping away lip gloss with the back of my arm. I think I heard sniffling echoing from behind, but I didn’t give a shit. I was done.

I fished my phone from my pocket and flipped it open. Eleven-fifteen. For the first time in my life, I was glad I had a curfew. All that was left was to retrieve Bella so I could go home and sleep off this terrible night. Just one more hurdle. The crowd had escalated from silly to sloppy in the time that passed, and I became more concerned the deeper I got. I was relieved to find that she hadn’t wandered off, but neither had Doucheward. She was draped over him, arms around his neck, letting him move them both to the music. Gritting my teeth, I pushed my way through.

“Bells,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s late. We’ve gotta get going.” She hoisted herself up to look at me.

“What?” Dammit. She might not be sober by the time we got home. Charlie was going to murder me.

“It’s almost eleven-thirty, honey. We’ve got to head out now.”

“But I’m having fun! Ten more minutes.” She nuzzled back into his shoulder.

“What, is she going to turn into a pumpkin?” I was losing patience at an alarming rate, at least partly due to the suave asshole I was being forced to look at.

“No, come on. It’s time to go.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Looks like she doesn’t want to go with you,” he interjected. His face was somehow getting even more smug by the second. He clearly enjoyed watching me struggle. 

“Nobody asked you, Cullen,” I said, lowering my voice as a warning.

“Just trying to honor the lady’s wishes.”

“Jake, don’t be a buzzkill. Go home if you don’t want to stay.” 

“I can drive her home.”

“Like hell, you will,” I growled. 

“What are you, her dad?” he sneered. “Or her big brother?”

He was baiting me. I knew it. He knew it. He should have known better than to screw with me, especially when it came to Bella. Everyone else knew the rules, but this asshole didn’t. He wasn’t afraid of me. That was his mistake. My self control was holding on by a thread, and I wasn’t going to be able to reel myself in as long as his greasy hands were still on her. I swallowed, and gently took Bella by the elbow, guiding her out of his arms.

“Come on, honey. Charlie’s going to kill us both if I don’t get you home.”

But then he yanked her back sharply, and I lost it.

The sound of my fist hitting his nose seemed to reverberate throughout the room. It only took him a half second to register what had happened before he wound up to take a swing at me. Sure. Gloves off. I was more than happy to settle this right then and there. I could take whatever little love-taps he put out, and I’d sleep a lot better afterwards. We didn’t get that far. Someone was already holding him back when Bella screamed, turning green at the sight of the blood flowing from his nose.

“Jake!” I spun around at the sound of her voice. Her lower lip was trembling, her eyes already glassy and red. Everything else in the room had come to a standstill, and we were surrounded by our gawking classmates.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” She fled, shoving people away, her hands clumsily trying to hide her angry tears. I spared one blistering look for Cullen before turning heel and running after her.

She didn’t speak to me the entire drive home. I was seething, and I was satisfied that I had made my point with Cullen, but I still felt like shit. I hated seeing Bella cry, and knowing that I was the one who did it really yanked on my leash. I would fix it tomorrow, though. She’d sober up and realize the danger she was in, and I’d apologize for humiliating her and punching the guy she liked, and I’d figure out some way to make it up to her. Then I’d apologize some more. She’d be pissed at me for a couple days, and then she’d come around. Cullen would be gone, and all would be forgiven.

After three days, two voicemails, and seven unanswered text messages, I came to the realization that this fight was nothing like any of the ones we ever had before. This wasn’t a garden-variety mistake; This was a fuck up, and no amount of groveling was going to put things back to where they were before.

There comes a time in your life that you find yourself at a fork in the road. You won’t recognize it at the time, but as the years pass, you find yourself tracing everything in your life, where you are, who you’ve become, back to that decision, as you struggle to pinpoint how and why your life veered off in this direction. Everybody gives the other path a passing thought at some point, just out of curiosity, and maybe you wonder if you made the better choice. There’s no surefire way to tell if you did, but if you spend thirteen years wondering how things could have been different, then you’ve already got your answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boy done goofed. Don't worry, we'll be hearing more from him soon.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave your thoughts in the comments! It keeps me from wandering off when I see something shiny.


	7. Deluded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you tell yourself something enough, you'll start to believe it.

“She seems nice.”

Nessie was guiding us towards the table where most of the older folks sat with iced teas and glasses of wine. The introductions had gone well, if you didn’t count the uncomfortable vibe circling over me like vultures. She was her usual charming self, not that I expected anything different. Nessie had been determined to win everyone over since I first brought her home, which was going well enough. Dad liked her, so she passed the first test. The extended family, Charlie included, seemed to enjoy having her around. No missteps. No controversy. All smiles. It was the third test that had me up at night, the roughest terrain to navigate by any measurement. 

Bells.

I never thought the day would come when Bella returned to our hometown, especially without Doucheward in tow. The day I got the call from Billy, it felt like a monkey wrench had been thrown into the dead center of my life, all my plans suddenly called into question. To say that I was elated to have her back was an understatement, and this didn’t escape notice. I saw the wariness in Nessie’s eyes whenever Bella’s name came up in conversation, especially at gatherings like this one, and knew that I had my work cut out for me. She would never admit it in a hundred years, but she didn’t trust her. Ness wouldn’t want to spoil this for me, so she said nothing. I wasn’t sure if saying nothing was better or worse than telling me what she really thought.

The possibility that things between Bells and I could go back to normal was tantalizing. Was I still sore about not seeing her for years at a time? You bet your ass I was. But, if the stories about Cullen were to be believed, she’d been punished enough. That night at dinner, the worst elements of my consciousness wanted to say, “I told you so.” They wanted me to take things slowly, test the waters, see if “normal” was even an option for us, or if too much had happened. As I felt her chest heave against mine, weeping and blubbering about the sorry state she was in, I realized that the decision was already made for me. I was going to get the band back together. 

And so, like a person who had never seen a movie before, I decided to omit all Bella talk and development from conversations with my girlfriend. There was nothing for her to worry about, so why make her worry? That was ancient history. I was going to try to have it both ways. It was, as I should have realized, a dumb fucking idea.

“Yeah, she is nice,” I replied, debating whether she actually wanted to continue the conversation. I left it at that.

I wanted to talk to Bella some more. It was difficult to get both of us in the same place at the same time with my schedule, but I wouldn’t get the chance. She decided to sit with the guys instead of us, which stung a little. It wasn’t a mystery why. The awkward meeting notwithstanding, she did not want to be caught up in questions from the extended family. She always hated those kinds of inquiries into her life. When we were kids, she once told me that she felt like she needed to make something up for them, because the truth wouldn’t be good enough. She was having a rough time of it, and she didn’t need to rehash it with a positive spin for their benefit. I hoped she remembered that she would never have to do that for me. And when she ducked out early with minimal fanfare, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

“Do you wanna stay over?” We were walking back from the party, hand in hand, lazily swinging them back and forth, before stopping in front of Nessie’s car.

“I want to,” she replied with a sly smile. I pulled her against me by the waist, leaning down to brush my lips against hers.

“Then stay.”

“I can’t.” She played with the buttons on my shirt. “I’m booked solid tomorrow. I need to be there bright and early to get ready for the onslaught.” I tried not to sound too disappointed.

“Okay, honey. Just no happy endings, alright?” She snorted.

“No, those are all for you.”

“Unless you get a really good offer,” I added with a wink. “Gotta fund this high-roller lifestyle somehow.” Her laugh began to fade into a shy smile with something a little more serious behind it.

“Hey, I was wondering…”

“Mhmmm?”

“Will you show me the house?” How much more oblivious could I have been? 

“Of course. I’ll be working on it Friday, if you want to come.”

“I’ll have to check my appointment book, but I think I can swing it. Maybe I can stay over then?” A faint blush rose in her pale cheeks. I love it when girls blush.

“It’s a date.” I kissed the tip of her nose, and then she pulled me in for something longer, maybe even a little intense for a goodnight.

There had been talk. Most of it was the benign jabbering you hear from your parents and relatives when you reach my age, a whole lot of wild speculation based on outward appearances. I tried to ignore it, unsuccessfully. It ground my gears when I was a teenager, and my feelings about it had not improved much with time. These days, the issue revolved around the house, of course, which was now the lightning rod for all the recent complications in my life. It couldn’t _only_ be a passion project, you see. I bought it after Ness and I started dating, and therefore, I had _intentions._ What was that Austen line Bella used to quote all the time? “A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” That sounded about right.

I wandered around my empty childhood home, pouring myself a glass of water before retiring to my old room. I was happy that my dad was living with my sister now, but it also meant that there was no reason to keep the old place anymore. As soon as my house was livable, this one would have to go on the market. I stripped down to my boxers and landed backwards onto the bed with a deep sigh. It was honestly better that Ness didn’t stay. Between work, construction, my social engagements, and the hairier details of my personal life, there wasn’t much in me to give.

The truth was that I had no “intentions.” Everyone quietly assumed that once the house was done, I was going to cut to the chase and propose. We’d barely been together for a year though, and as much as I cared for her, getting serious just didn’t feel right. But when would it be right? As I pulled the blankets over my shoulder, I wondered if I wasn’t ready for all that, or if I was simply stalling.

The house was a pain in the ass. I felt like its personal assistant, or its fixer, coordinating timelines and deliveries, finding a way around roadblocks, and mitigating the damage when something inevitably went wrong. The physical aspect of it was getting to me, too. I had all but abandoned the idea of working out anymore. The sore, stiff muscles in my back reminded me every morning that I needed to take it easy, or risk injury just to get the damn kitchen sink installed. Still, it was a labor of love.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, squinting in the sunlight to watch as Seth balanced on the roof of the porch. Now that the damaged siding was replaced, it was time to start cutting in the paint on the outside of the house. Seth’s balance faltered for a second.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Don’t rush! If you fall off and break your neck, Leah is going to blame me for it.”

“And then she’ll break yours, too!” he called back, regaining his footing.

“And nobody wants that. Just take it easy, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The crinkling of gravel came up behind me fast. I turned away from spotting Seth to find a bright red Chevy coming to a stop beside my car, and Bella hopped out. It hadn’t been very long since we last saw each other, but it felt like ages.

“Hey, Bells. How’s it going?” She looked a little breathless, a little more jittery than I’d come to expect, and she was all dressed up.

“Good. Really good, actually.” She smiled as if she didn’t quite believe it herself.

“Does it have anything to do with the getup?” I asked, nodding at the neatly pressed black slacks and blouse she was wearing, a matching jacket cinching her tiny waist.

“What?” She looked down at herself. “Oh, right. Yes, it does.”

“You’ve become a real estate agent?” She pursed her lips

“No.”

“Lawyer?”

“No.”

“Corporate dominatrix?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I just got a job offer,” she said with a huff. My eyes widened.

“Really?”

“Really. I wanted to come by and tell you” she said, playing with a strand of hair. She always wore bashfulness well. It had been so long that I’d forgotten how cute it was. 

“Bells, that’s amazing!” I instinctively picked her up, dealing a death-defying bear hug that elicited a high-pitched squeal. It’s hard to explain, but I felt almost as relieved to hear the news as she was. She was still giggling when I planted her back on the ground.

“When was this?”

“Just now. I’m going to be teaching summer school at Forks High.” I visibly winced.

“Wow, they’re making you deal with the worst miscreants right out of the gate, huh?”

“Said the miscreant.”

“I hope the pay is good.”

“Not even a little,” she said, her smile unwavering. “But it’ll keep me from having to stand in line for government cheese. And if I play my cards right, I might get hired full-time in the fall.” Of course she would. It was a slam dunk.

“I’m so happy for you, Bells. You deserve this.” Color rose in her cheeks, and her eyes darted to the ground for a moment as she mumbled “Thanks.” Her gaze slowly climbed up my torso, stopping to stare for a moment when she reached my face, and then snapped away to the house.

“You started painting,” she observed, gesturing to Seth, who I had just remembered was still on the roof and unsupervised. I scratched the back of my neck.

“It was time. The outside’s done. All that’s left is to finish off the electrical, and then we can install the fixtures and start painting the interior.”

“You picked the blue,” she said. She was studying the house with an almost puzzled expression, but then she smiled. “I like it.”

“Do you want to come in?” I asked. She froze, her eyes darting from the front door and back to me.

“Is--is that okay?” My eyebrows pressed together.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head and the nervous energy with it. “Sure, let’s go.” We wandered the rooms together while she noted the progress of the last several weeks. I felt a small swell of pride rise in my chest at her approval. I watched her face shift back and forth between awe and delight, her fingers tracing the dark, unvarnished wood of the bannister affectionately. I wished I didn’t want her approval so much, but I couldn’t help it. It was like crack, and no amount seemed to satisfy me, so I kept looking for more.

We eventually landed on the porch swing, which I had gotten Quil to repair just days before. I hoped he didn’t half-ass it like he did the door hinges, or Bella really would break something. I scrolled through my pictures, showing her screenshots of the lights and sconces I was considering

I could feel her eyes hovering on me again, and I wasn’t sure what it meant. The first time, it was likely just an appraisal after years of being apart. You might get away with writing off the second one as well. Beyond that, I couldn’t say for sure. However, if I was going with my gut, it felt like she was checking me out. The occasional joke from Quil or Embry seemed to confirm my suspicions. Not that I minded. In fact, I didn’t mind at all. What I _did_ mind was the little thrill it gave me. I would have killed for her to look at me like that once. Of course, she had to wait until I was already--

No. I wasn’t going to feed that monster. There was no way that I was going to start second-guessing my relationship based on the echoes of feelings I used to have. I moved on a long time ago. Things with Nessie were good. The last thing I needed was to unsteady the boat again. It would help if I didn’t feel like I was being tested by a vengeful Greek god every step of the way. 

“So, how are things?” I asked, leaning back in the swing. “I feel like I haven’t really talked to you since the day you came home.” 

“Much better now that I have a job.” She paused and shifted in her seat. “I’m still kind of a trash fire, though. It’s a work in progress.”

“Anything I can do to help?” A strange, rueful little burst of a laugh escaped her lips.

“I wish. I think I may be beyond help.” She shook her head and sighed heavily, her chestnut waves brushing against my arm. I recognized an evasive joke when I heard it. I held the patent on it. What I wanted to know was why it was coming out of her mouth. I wasn’t aware of what my expression betrayed, but she was quick to stifle it with the softest, most genuine smile I’d received in a long time, and it caught me off guard. “But your existence is a huge help.”

Another thump of my dumb, treasonous heart. It wasn’t the first of the day, either. God, I missed her. In such a short amount of time, all the things that I told myself over the years, that I could get along fine without her, that I didn’t need her in my life, revealed themselves for what they had always been: Lies, and bad ones at that. Just sitting like this, like we used to, seemed to soothe the restless animal that had been living under my skin. Could we just stay like this? Could we leave behind all the meaningless crap that was cluttering up our lives and just be Us? In that moment of easy quiet, Bella looking at me, me looking at her, I would have given anything to be sixteen again.

“Hey, Ness!” Seth shouted from above.

I froze. I didn’t hear the car or the door opening. Bella’s head whipped around to watch right along with me as my girlfriend approached the house. 

_Shit._

I forgot.

“Bella.” It was a question and a statement. “What a surprise,” she said with a strained smile. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Neither did I,” replied Bella, rising to her feet. “I came to tell Jake about my new job. We got to talking about the lights he bought and I guess we lost track of the time.” Ness nodded agreeably, but unconvinced. The awkward delivery definitely didn’t help. There were those vultures again. 

“The fixtures, huh? I can’t wait to see them.” Her eyes locked onto mine for only a second before returning to Bella. A second needle in under a minute. I was going to look like a pincushion before the day was over.

“Well, I should get going. If I don’t get dinner started soon, my dad is going to start checking between the couch cushions for sustenance.” She offered us both her feeble goodbyes and scurried back to the truck, with Nessie’s piercing gaze following her the whole way.

“Ness, I’m sorry,” I started, feebly trying to break the tense silence between us. “I didn’t forget. I’m just bad with time.” She pressed her lips into a hard line, hands on her hips, glaring at the floor in front of her. Wheels were turning in her head, no doubt making this look like something it wasn’t, and it made me extremely nervous.

“Why is it that every time I see you two together, I feel like I’m walking in on something?”

“What are you talking about?” I squinted at her, trying to suss out exactly what she was implying. 

“I’m talking about Bella,” she replied firmly, her eyes cutting through me. It wasn’t entirely anger that was sketched across her face. It was something much worse. Hurt. 

“Honey, we’ve been through this already. She and I are just friends.” 

“Have you told _her_ that?” I swallowed, confused and with no idea how to respond. “Oh come on, Jake. I’ve seen how she looks at you.”

“I know it can look a little weird from the outside, but it doesn’t mean what you think it does. We grew up together; We’re family.” She let out a tiny, humorless laugh and shook her head, her lips curled into a sardonic smile. “Honey, come on. This is crazy. It’s not like that.”

“It isn’t?” she asked incredulously, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Okay, then I’ve got a question: Why did I have to schedule an appointment for you to show me the house, but she’s seen it twice now?” I sighed. Three times.

“You could have just asked.”

“I didn’t know that you had gotten so serious about it until she started talking about it! I was completely blindsided by a total stranger gushing about countertops for my boyfriend’s house, which _I_ haven’t even seen yet. Do you know what that’s like? I feel like I’m the last person to know everything, and I’m having a lot of trouble not taking it personally anymore. When I asked you to show me the house, I thought you finally got it.” I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“It’s not personal. It’s just how things played out.”

“And _then_ ,” she continued, ignoring my contribution. “I come here and find out that she’s here _again_ , helping you pick out light fixtures.” I was starting to lose my cool.

“She wasn’t...Ness, it’s just a house.”

“It’s not just a house, Jacob. It means something. You keep me at arm’s length, and I thought that it would get better with time, but it hasn’t. It’s gotten worse. Every time I try to talk to you about the future, you just drag your feet.” There was the anger. I was wondering when that was going to overpower her desire for the moral high ground. Maybe that wasn’t fair. However, the accusations weren’t making me feel especially sympathetic at that moment.

“We agreed to take things slow, remember? I’m not ready for serious commitment yet. I told you that when we got together. ” 

“I used to believe that. I thought, ‘I need to be patient and understanding because this poor guy has clearly had his heart broken and needs some time to heal. Surely, things will get better.’ Well it’s been almost a year, and I’m still waiting for it to get better.” 

“Where are you pulling that from?” I asked, completely bewildered at this point.

“That’s the reason, isn’t it? You had a bad breakup.”

“What? No. This is the most serious relationship I’ve had.” She was half right. Losing Bella definitely _felt_ like a bad breakup. Dismayed, she pushed forward.

“Then why didn’t you want to move in with me?”

“For the reasons I already told you. I didn’t want to be that far from my family. Billy’s not in great health these days. I don’t want to leave my sister completely responsible for him. Even if that weren’t the case, it was too much too soon.”

“Too soon? When will it not be too soon to talk about things, Jake? Before or after Haley’s comet? Or should I be asking Bella instead?” I scoffed. “My parents have been asking me questions about us, like why you’ve suddenly got a fire lit underneath you to finish this house, but we won’t be living together, and I don’t have any answers for them.”

“Neither do I, and I’m really tired of you bringing Bella into this.”

“Well given that since she’s moved here, she’s been spending more time with my boyfriend than I have, I feel like it’s at least a tiny bit relevant,” she said coolly. “Not to mention the fact that you try to change the subject every time her name comes up. Was it her?” she demanded. “Is she the one who dumped you?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that we were never together before you’ll believe it?” My fist clenched at my side as I practically spat each word out. Why? Why was she being like this? Why did I have to spill my guts to prove that...what? I wasn’t cheating on her? These were old wounds that I didn’t need to be reminded of. I desperately wanted to leave the past in the past. If she wanted to help me to “heal” so goddamn badly, she was doing a lousy job. 

“I haven’t seen her in years! Bells and I have barely spoken to each other since we graduated high school, and now we have a chance to be friends again. She’s important to me, Ness, so forgive me for wanting to see her a couple of times.” She fixed me with an incredulous stare.

“If she’s so important, then why weren’t you two speaking for over ten years?” she asked pointedly. Of course, she was going to keep digging. I felt like one of her clients, yelping in pain as her tiny fingers searched my muscles for the knot, pressing, stabbing, grinding with her knuckles until she forced it loose. Her eyes suddenly widened with surprised recognition.

“Oh my God.” The words left her mouth in a staccato laugh of disbelief. I’d like to say that I began walking away to further reiterate my feelings on this conversation. In reality, it felt more like turning tail. She was undeterred.

“She rejected you, didn’t she?” she said, her steps almost lunging to keep up with my pace. 

“No, she didn’t,” I growled, though a voice in the back of my head whispered that she might as well have. I could never be sure if Bella was oblivious to my feelings, or if she knew and chose to ignore it. I had to go with obliviousness, because the second option tugged at the tenuous bonds of that scar, threatening to tear it open once again.

“I knew it,” she said, her voice bright and acidic. “I knew there was something there that you weren’t telling me, and I was right.” I picked up the pace, though I didn’t know where I thought I was going to escape to. 

“Jake!” We looked ridiculous, like a Benny Hill montage set to the music of our angry exchange. Eventually, I had to stop.

“Tell me the truth.” I turned around to find her eyes burning into me, her shoes covered in dirt and grass. “You have feelings for her, don’t you?” My anger and frustration was gone. They had been for some time now. In their place was the sensation of my insides writhing and twisting like a pile of snakes. Why couldn’t she just leave well enough alone? 

“We were kids, Ness,” I groaned, feeling resigned. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter. It’s got nothing to do with you and me.” She glanced back at the house from over her shoulder, surveying the new paint. Two figures appeared to be watching us from the upstairs window and quickly scattered when her eyes found them. She looked back at me with a heavy sigh, her eyes becoming glassy with every passing second.

“I wish I could believe that,” she said quietly, digging the keys from her pocket. “This was a mistake. But hey, at least I finally got some answers.”

“Ness, come on.” I reached out for her, but she shook her head and backed away. 

“No. I think I’ve had enough of waiting, and I’m not going to be someone else’s understudy anymore,” she said, her voice cracking. “Goodbye, Jake. I hope things work out for you.”

I watched her leave, rooted to the spot beside all the other weeds, trying to process what just happened. It was astonishing just how this Hindenburg of a day unfolded, culminating in getting dumped in my own backyard with a live studio audience peering down at us. For the life of me, I couldn’t nail down how I felt. The humiliation of it all was clouding everything else. I had tried so hard to avoid this. I thought that I could smooth everything over, assuring them that my relationship with one wasn’t going to affect the other, only to have it blow up in my face. There was no coming back from this today. Rather than deal with looks and questions from the guys, I tapped out.

Home. Shower. Couch. I settled for whatever beige cholesterol catastrophe I could find in the freezer and hoped that some food and rest could make me feel better. Instead of helping, the solitude just made it fester into a dull pain that spread from my chest and up into my head. It was intolerable. I didn’t want to be alone tonight. What I wanted most was to talk to Bella, but what the hell was I going to tell her? “My girlfriend broke up with me because she thinks I’m still in love with you”? What a fucking mess. There was only one other person to go to in times of crisis.

“Tea and sympathy?” Billy asked, looking me over from the other side of the door frame. In the few seconds it took me to run from my car to the covered porch of Paul and Rachel’s house, my top half was already soaked from the sudden downpour. I hoisted up the six pack dangling from my fingers.

“I’m not really big on tea.” He motioned for me to come in, wheeling himself into the living room while I kicked my muddy shoes off and stepped inside. My sister’s place was warm and homey. It conjured the same feeling as our home growing up, only a little bigger. I could never be sure if she had made a conscious effort to capture that feeling when they moved in, but as I started to consider my own choices, I finally concluded that it was.

“The baby’s asleep, so we can’t get too rowdy tonight,” he added wryly. I silently cracked one open for my father and then myself, then slid down into the upholstered armchair beside him with a sigh. He didn’t ask. Like all fishing enthusiasts, he knew how to wait. After a few moments of just taking in the sound of the rain on the roof, I opened my eyes again.

“Nessie broke up with me.” He pursed his lips.

“What happened?”

“She came to see the house when I was working on it, and she saw me and Bella.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Were you two…?”

“What? No! We were just talking!”

“I had to ask!” he replied, hands raised in surrender. 

“What is it with everyone making assumptions?” I could feel the frustration bubbling up to the surface again. It wasn’t the dull, low, thudding pain like the dumping itself. It was red and itchy and raw, and almost impossible to ignore it or distract myself. No matter how hard I dug my nails in, it kept coming back. “First, they’re all crawling up my ass about Nessie, and now it’s Bella.” My palm dragged across my face, my fingers clenched around the roots of my hair. Dad chuckled.

“I hate to tell you son, but people always made assumptions. It was hard not to. You’re not subtle.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly, taking a long gulp. “What happened to the ‘sympathy’ part of this deal?” This added an entirely new layer of cringe to my memories of kindergarten through college. It was going to throw out all my mirrors the second I got home.

“So what happened, then?” I felt my jaw clench as I turned the can around in my hand, scanning the label without actually seeing it.

“We had a fight. She thinks I won’t commit because I’m not over Bella.”

There are two types of silence from my father that I observed in my nearly three decades on this earth; The first was serene and purposeless, totally at ease with not a word passing between us. The other was louder than talking. It was Billy making a concerted effort to bite his tongue, and I’d learned long ago that it was better to get it out of him than let it drive you crazy.

“What, Dad,” I asked flatly. He eyed me, looking for some cue that I actually wanted to hear his thoughts instead of just expressing my aggravation. I wasn’t completely sure which one I was looking for, either.

“...Is that not it?” My face grew hot. 

“God, not you too,” I groaned. “Why won’t anyone just accept that I moved on?”

“Because you don’t act like someone who’s moved on,” he said plainly. “You’ve got all the signs and symptoms of a man who’s been carrying a torch for a long, long time.”

“I have _not_ been carrying a torch.”

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, kid.” 

“Look, of course I love Bella. She’s my best friend. She’s as much family to me as you are. But I had to let go of everything else a long time ago.” Loving her as anything else was just too painful. If sixteen-year-old me thought that my _Nick-at-Nite_ level pining hurt, just wait until two months into freshman year when our calls and texts dried up. That’s when I discovered tequila. If I was going to stay sane, I was going to have to stop clinging to something that was never going to happen.

“Then why didn’t you want to get serious with Nessie?” he asked. “Looked like you liked her a lot.”

“I did. I just couldn’t get any further than that. Ness would talk about the future sometimes, like things she wanted to do, but I could never see it. I guess that after having my heart set on one vision for so many years, I can’t picture anything else.”

“And you don’t think that means something?” 

I opened my mouth to counter, but nothing came out. As much as I hated it, his suggestion had already firmly taken root. I didn’t want it to mean anything, but the more I thought about it, the more everything began to untangle. No, I hadn’t moved on as much as I thought I had, and definitely not as much as I wanted to. But there was a difference between an old wound that aches when it rains and one that never closed up to begin with, and I was always adamant that it couldn’t be the second. I spent years telling myself that it was over and I was fine, the classic “fake it ‘till you make it” approach, only on closer examination, it appeared that I never transitioned to step two. 

It was all so long ago, too long ago to be messed up about it anymore. It wasn’t just the searing pain and rejection of seeing her with someone else. Watching her leave my side would have been torture for any reason. She was back now, though. That should have made it better. If anything, it made it more acute, more erratic. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were supposed to leave all that behind. So why was I still feeling like this?

“I don’t know,” I replied, reaching for a second beer. Billy didn’t press any further, instead offering to watch basketball with me for a while, and I gratefully accepted. At that point, I was a lost cause. I was going to marinate in this for a while, whether I wanted to or not.

Though I was actively ignoring Nessie’s accusations, they weren’t going away. No amount of hostility would shut it up. The theory came heavy with so many implications that it threatened to pull me down to the bottom of the ocean. If it was true, if I was still in love with her, then I had been lying to everyone. To myself. To Nessie. Then every fierce flutter of my heart, every wandering glance, and every hug that I prolonged was not as innocent as I’d told myself. Then I had spent over ten years waiting for her to come back and give me one last chance. I went to college, worked my way up to management, started making real money, practically rebuilt an entire house. Tangible proof that I was worth just as much as that old-money asshole, that I could give her everything I knew she wanted. Gatsby was supposed to be a warning, not a roadmap.

But worst of all, it would mean that despite giving it my all, I still wanted her. Badly. It confirmed my worst fear: I could only love Bella, but I couldn’t have her. The struggle was futile. I would be stuck in this torture chamber forever, and there was no way out.

I held my breath, hoping that it would send this lump in my throat back down to hell where it belonged. I desperately wanted it to not be true, but it all snapped perfectly into place like the pieces of a puzzle. Ness was right. Dad was right. All the teasing from the guys was right. I was still hopelessly in love with her, and it had me utterly paralyzed.

“Dad?” He looked away from the screen. I tried not to let my voice crack. “What if it’s true? What the hell do I do, then?” His face softened with the sympathy I had been waiting for.

“What you didn’t do before,” he said. “You have to tell her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way forward is clear, but things are never that simple.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please continue to leave kudos and your thoughts in the comments!


	8. Coward

A massive wave of guilt came crashing down over my head. Though I didn’t stick around to find out, I could tell from the look on Vanessa’s face that there would be a fight once I was out of earshot, and the venom I’d spat privately was starting to seep back into me. Just as I was regaining my independence, I was starting to feel like a curse on everyone around me once again.

I cruised silently through the front door of our empty house and to my room, peeling off my business professional costume and sliding back into sweats. One look in the mirror reminded me how much makeup I was wearing, some of which was beginning to smudge in the summer heat. That had to go as well. I was overdressed for a small-town job interview. The rules in Seattle were much more clearly defined than out in B.F.E., but “dress for the job you want,” right? They offered me the job on the spot, but given that summer school began the following Wednesday, part of me wondered if they were just desperate to fill the position. Whatever. It was time for Bella Swan to prove that she could do something right for once. 

I had to remind myself that I had fantastic news to share with Charlie. I wanted to shove the rest of this afternoon into the back of the overflowing closet of my mind and focus on the future. I perked up well enough. My father encased me in a tight hug, spouting words of pride and encouragement that I wasn’t entirely convinced I deserved. After leaning on so many people for support, it was hard to believe that I deserved the recognition for anything I’d done in the last few months. At least my financial fears were assuaged. 

I didn’t want to tell him about my little revelation. I’d only just barely accepted my feelings myself, and very begrudgingly at that. Maybe I didn’t want to hear “I told you so.” It was still a little too raw at the moment. Too personal. It wasn’t showing any signs of letting up, either. I could barely handle the embarrassment of knowing that my nights lately were spent thinking about Jacob. Missing him. Wondering what he was up to. Wondering when I would see him again. Wondering if he was thinking about me. That wistful silliness might have been the most girly thing I’d ever done. 

I let my mind wander there again for the entire drive to therapy. It was a much better comfort to me in the days that followed than the prospect of seeing Edward again. But he wasn’t there. When I entered the waiting area, it was completely empty, and less than ten minutes until showtime. I sat down with a relieved puff and allowed myself to zone out. A couple filed out of the office, neither speaking, the wife with a frozen look of contempt on her face as he trotted off behind her, looking miserable. Edward was still A.W.O.L. when the doctor poked her head out of the office door.

“Bella?”

“Edward isn’t here yet. Should we reschedule?” I asked, almost hopeful. She frowned.

“He called earlier and told me he wouldn’t be able to make it. He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I said sheepishly. “I have him blocked on my phone. He can only call the landline.” For a second, she looked disappointed, but then nodded sympathetically.

“I see. Well, you’re welcome to come in for a solo session. It’s already paid for.” I paused to consider. This would be an opportunity to talk to someone who doesn’t know Jacob, or Nessie, or anyone else in my life besides Edward, and she might actually know what the hell she was talking about. I’d be an idiot to pass that up. I nodded timidly and followed her inside, planting myself squarely in the middle of the loveseat and marveling at how much more comfortable it was now that I wasn’t practically sitting on the armrest. We briefly exchanged the usual pleasantries before she decided to get down to business. I started with something simple and uncomplicated: my job.

“That’s wonderful news,” she replied. “It should be very convenient. Do you want to put down roots in Forks, or is this just for now?” I began chewing on the inside of my cheek.

“I think I’d like to stay in Forks. City life never really agreed with me.” She nodded in acknowledgement. “Though…”

“Hmmm?”

“...I’m not one hundred percent sure it’s the best idea.” 

“Why is that? Well, I guess it would be very far from Edward.” With some reservation, I shook my head. I knew that wasn’t the answer I was supposed to give in couples therapy, the song-and-dance I was putting myself through in a half-assed attempt to patch things up with my ex. Perhaps, just this once, I could come clean. “I actually don’t care.” Blunt maybe, but true. “It’s someone else.”

“Family? Friends? Or do you mean romantically?” Was there a difference anymore? Jacob and I were so tangled up together, and sadly not in the way that I liked to think about at night. I chose Answer D: All of the above.

“I’ve reconnected with my best friend after I came home. We’ve known each other since we were in diapers, and our families are very tight. I hadn’t seen him in six years, and only a handful of times between then and graduating high school.”

“This is…” She scanned her notes. “Jacob?” I nodded. “Were you two close?”

“Inseparable,” I said wearily. “We saw each other nearly every single day for fifteen years. I don’t think anyone could be closer without needing to be surgically detached.” We did homework after school, rode our bikes, stayed up late watching tv. I indulged him and attended every single football game he went to, just because he asked. I would have done a lot of stupid things if he asked me. “We started growing apart when Edward and I got together.”

“Did they get along?” I coughed out a laugh.

“They hated each other. Edward doesn’t like sharing, and Jacob thought he was bad news from the beginning.” He wasn’t wrong, though the way he expressed that seriously needed some work. “Until now, I always thought it was ridiculous.”

“What changed your mind?” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

“He started dating someone. I met her for the first time not long after I came home, and suddenly I felt like this rabid monster had taken the wheel.” The doctor’s mouth pucked in thought.

“Why do you think that is?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure at first. Some of it was finally getting a taste of my own medicine. I missed him so much for so long, and then when I finally had him around again, someone else wanted his attention. I resented the hell out of her for it, which is where all the crazy comes in.” My fingers gripped the lip of the upholstery. No, not this again. “There’s nothing wrong with her. I don’t even really know her, not that I’ve tried. There was just something about seeing them together that made me snap. After a couple of weeks riding that rollercoaster I think I finally figured it out.” I took a deep breath to steady myself. I hadn’t said it out loud to anyone, because that would make it real, and then I would have to do something about it. “I think I love him.”

“That’s quite a discovery,” she said, raising her eyebrows. Yeah, no kidding. “Has your relationship with Jacob only ever been platonic?”

It was easier to account for my own feelings than anyone else’s, or for our relationship as a whole. I remembered noticing him sometimes when we were teenagers. Little moments of recognition for how beautiful he was, or the warm feeling deep in my chest when I laid my head on his shoulder. There were no sudden changes in how I reacted to his touch or his smile. Something had crept in while I wasn’t looking.

“We never dated, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied. “Neither of us ever crossed that line. I’m still trying to figure out what my feelings really were back then, but it’s just too hard to compartmentalize our relationship like that.” She nodded.

“It can be hard to tell the difference with someone you’ve known for most of your life. If you had romantic feelings for him before you started dating Edward, do you think he would have reciprocated?“ 

I opened my mouth before my brain had actually formulated an answer, but stopped short of saying anything. I thought of our adolescence, of all the girls throwing themselves at him left and right that he brushed off so easily. I remembered how he stopped reaching for my hand. I remembered the stolen glances at the beach that I thought I’d imagined, or how his face would sometimes linger close to mine before laughing and pulling away. I remembered feeling a strange twinge of disappointment. There was something there all along, wasn’t there?

“Maybe,” I said quietly. I shook my head. “It’s a moot point. He’s involved with someone, and I don’t want to screw that up for him.” If I was being honest, I wanted them to split; The catch was that it would hurt him, and I didn’t want to inflict more on him than I already had. Being the cause of their breakup, intentionally or otherwise, would sit too heavily on my conscience. More words of affirmation from Dr. Addams. The phrase “your feelings are valid” made me grit my teeth. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel particularly validated by other people telling me I’m valid. What I wanted was action, someone or something to steer me in the right direction. My first impulse was to slap Jesus’s hand away and let my cynicism take the wheel.

“Taking all of this into account, I have to ask you Bella: What were your goals for couple’s therapy?” I should have been expecting this question from the beginning.

“I agreed to it because I thought it could change him, or that  _ I _ could change him. Tale as old as time, right?” I laughed weakly. “That’s never going to happen. This is who he is.” She gave me a sad little smile. I was only sad for all the time I wasted on him, not the train wreck that was our relationship. “Now that my life has stabilized for the most part, I want to put it all behind me and figure out what to do about Jacob. I don’t think I can stand to keep beating my head against a wall.” 

“You’re trying to be a good friend to him, and I think that’s the best place to start. That sounds like the kind of love that you need the most right now, and the kind of love that you’re the most prepared to give. If you keep trying, I think you’ll both wind up in a much better place.” I nodded. She was probably right, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. What did I want to hear? That I should throw all caution to the wind and just leap into his arms, girlfriend be damned? Of course not. Who, besides the depressed and horny demon that lurked somewhere within me, would tell me that?

“But what about his girlfriend?” I asked, filled with unease. “I know I make her nervous just by existing. She probably thinks there’s something going on between us, and the worst part is that she’s only half wrong. I’ve set off at least one fight between them, and I feel awful about it.” The doc shrugged.

“I’m sure it’s difficult for her, seeing how close you two are. As long as you’re respecting the boundaries of their relationship, there isn’t much you can do about her reaction. That’s something they have to work out among themselves.” I was afraid she was going to say that. The location of those lines were a little fuzzy these days, and I wasn’t entirely sure that he was as cognizant of them as he ought to be, if our last encounter was any indication. She was probably right, though. All I could do was behave myself and let the chips fall where they may.

I was grateful for her help, and feeling a little guilty for dismissing her so easily the first time. It might have been the most productive single therapy session I’d ever had, and it wasn’t even what I came there for. On the drive home, I finally accepted what was in front of me: It was over between Edward and I. There was never a chance it was going to work out between us, and I never truly cared if it did. The only thing left to do was to tell him as much. 

For the second time in months, I voluntarily picked up my father’s landline and dialed Edward’s number, fidgeting in place as I secretly hoped that he wouldn’t pick up and I could just leave a voicemail. No such luck.

“Isabella?” I sighed heavily, completely lacking in the willpower to exchange any pleasantries.

“You skipped therapy,” I said flatly. “Were you planning on telling me?”

“I got pulled into a meeting and I was going to be late anyways, so I took a rain check.”

“You don’t just ‘take a rain check’ on couples therapy without informing the other half of the couple! This is so typ--You know what? It doesn’t matter.” I waved dismissively as if he could see it. “I’m done, Edward. I’ve had enough. Send me the rest of my stuff, because I’m not coming back to get it.”

“Bella--”

“--Stop,” I said, cutting him off. “You’re not going to talk me back into this again. I want my stuff. Send me the bill if you want. I don’t care. I have a good job and a life now, and I don’t need you or your charity.” I hung up before he could get another word in edgewise.

It was liberating. The last time we broke up, I was too entrenched in my own Swamp of Sadness to feel the weight being lifted from my shoulders. The mental images were too pervasive, too potent, to imagine anything else but a pitch-black abyss at the dead end of this path I was on. No more. There was hope. Sure, I wasn’t getting everything I wanted, but we seldom do, and I had all the important things checked off my list. So what if Jacob was taken? There was nothing wrong with being single. We could just be friends if I tried, and who knows? Maybe it would go away on its own.

When Dad came home, I was lounging on my bed, cobbling together my first lesson plan. It was harder than I thought.

“Hey Bells!” he called up the stairs. “You home?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” I closed my laptop and joined him downstairs, where he was pulling out the industrial-sized jug of peanut oil that he kept under the sink.

“Are we out of WD-40?”

“Billy had a windfall of trout yesterday,” he explained, setting it onto the counter with a thud. “I invited him over to help him eat it all. And yes, we are.” He glanced over at me. “You look happy. Did therapy go well?” I shifted nervously, biting my lip.

“Um, yeah. It did. I guess Jake is coming over, too?”

“A far as I know. With his appetite, we might need to double the batch,” he said, now talking to himself. The sound of the doorbell startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time a human being used our doorbell. I wasn’t even sure it worked until now. Charlie wandered to the door, and I could hear his muffled speech from the kitchen.

“Uh...Yeah...Okay, thanks….You too. Bye.”

“What was that about?” I called. He was gingerly carrying a clear vase that was overflowing with flowers. Roses, hydrangeas, snapdragons, lilies, all forming an elegantly disheveled arrangement the size of a beach ball.

“You got a secret admirer?” He set it down on the coffee table beside me, looking it over, and then plucked something out from among the stems. “Here.”

I don’t know what I was expecting. After half a glance at the card, I stuck it back into the plastic holder. I couldn’t bring myself to care, or even to react. I banished the bouquet to the living room to await its sentence and decided to focus my energy on making the house presentable enough for company. My conversation with the therapist played in an endless loop in my head for the rest of the afternoon. I needed to act normal, but I didn’t know what that even meant anymore. What troubled me the most was the possibility of weirdness after the last time we saw each other, especially if things devolved the way I thought they did after I left. The doc would have told me it wasn’t my problem, so I kept reminding myself until I believed it.

My fears receded upon opening the front door and finding that he looked exactly the same. Same breezy smile. Same tight hug that never lasts long enough. Same digs at my height or my chronic whiteness. At Charlie’s behest, we all settled in the living room for a spell as Billy began regaling us with tales of his victorious fishing excursion. After sitting down on the couch, I found myself wondering if Jake was going to sit beside me. I craved proximity. Any excuse to be as close as possible without crossing any lines. It was addictive, like Blackjack, hitting over and over as if I couldn’t lose at any second. The moony schoolgirl writing my internal monologue was immediately silenced when my dad dropped heavily onto the cushion next to me, legs sprawled out on the coffee table. Jake spared me a glance, rolled his eyes, and smiled indulgently at our old fogies before settling into the armchair beside me.

“So, are you ready to go back to school?” he asked, a hint of mockery in his smile. I sighed.

“As far as the lesson plans go? Yes. Emotionally? Debatable.” He snorted.

“You’re gonna do great, honey..” He looked down at the bottle in his hand, worrying the label with his thumbnail. “I’m really happy for you,” he continued. “You got yourself out of a bad situation and you managed to pull all this together.” How bizarre was it that I felt so relieved, so sated by his praise? Since when did I crave his approval so much? I already knew the answer to that: Since I lost it. This was starting to feel like forgiveness, like I had never really lost his friendship in the first place. Maybe he was just waiting for me to get my shit together.

There was a fondness in his voice that made me blush more than the words themselves. I tried not to feel the way it prodded at my heart, inflicting both pain and pleasure at the same time. I tried not to notice the dimples that formed on his cheeks either. I knew this was going to be hard, but I felt like an idiot for not realizing just how hard it was going to be. Accept it, Bella. Just accept it.

“I’m proud of you too, Jake.” I paused. “And I’m really happy for you.” The last part was harder to force out than I anticipated. But it needed to be said.

“Well, there’s no better motivator than being broke and alone,” he chuckled.

“Amen to that.”

The dads were peckish, and as keen as they were to keep shooting the shit, hunger soon won out, and they retreated to the kitchen to get cooking. We were still chatting when Jacob’s eyes suddenly flickered to something behind me, and his jaw gave a twitch. He stood up.

“Do you want another beer?” My bottle was still mostly full. I thought a little hooch might settle my nerves, but the carbonation was the strongest thing about it. I forgot that my dad didn’t buy any beer that you couldn’t find at a gas station.

“I’m good,” I said. 

Whether it was to stay with him or to avoid being alone, I followed him to the kitchen. More than anything, I wanted to know why he seemed so restless. The strange atmosphere around him was contagious. I offered to help Charlie by throwing a salad together, and he reluctantly agreed. Jake parked himself at the table and worked on his second beer, where he remained through dinner. Still trading jabs with me and Billy, still eating like a horse and struggling not to choke every time he laughed with a mouthful. It could be that I was feeling especially self-conscious that night, but I could feel his eyes on me as I chopped lettuce and brought empty plates back to the fryer for additional helpings, like a breeze barely grazing the back of my neck. 

There was something on his mind, something he wasn’t telling me. I’d felt this before when we were teenagers. Back then, I was convinced that it was something fairly mundane like girl troubles. An uncomfortable shift from being open books to each other, sole confidantes, to the ever-increasing desire for privacy that dogged the last years of our adolescence. Later, it felt like grim resignation to the new reality that was Edward Cullen. Whatever this was about, it sowed unease in my mind, and I couldn’t help but credit our last meeting for it.

“Hey, Bells?” His mouth seemed to twist around the words. I loved hearing his nickname for me. Even when he was angry with me, I could feel a kind of affection in its core that was warm and reassuring. Now, it lit a match in my chest, a place that was already full of kindling. Nevertheless, a tiny part of me cringed at his mysterious tone. I looked back at him from the sink, sponge in hand. He was right where I’d left him, finishing what was either his fourth or fifth beer.

“Hmmm?”

“You wanna go outside?” He shifted in his seat. “I think the old folks are going to watch the game.”

“Um, sure.” This time, he was the one following me, almost as if I was going to make a run for it if I was at his back. Something began to squirm in the pit of my stomach. No matter what vows I had made, there was a good chance that I had already screwed the pooch.

The hush of early evening had settled over the world. A low murmur of wind and crickets accompanied the handful of stars that were peeking through the still-light sky like pin pricks. By the time Jacob and I stepped out, the cicadas had joined the chorus with their hysterical shrieking. Me too, boys. Me too.

“How are things?” I asked, feeling just as clumsy on the inside as I was in daily life. We had already exhausted these kinds of small-talk inquiries before dinner, but he knew my meaning. I was in no mood to beat around the bush anymore. The suspense was threatening to send me into cardiac arrest. He leaned against the rail.

“Alright.” He nodded. I didn’t like quiet Jake, and I liked waiting for him to elaborate even less. If he could just spit it out, I wouldn’t have to hold all this back anymore. All the apologies, the explanations laid out on the table so I could stop wondering where we stood. He was going to push me away, wasn’t he? It was one thing to impose that on myself, but knowing that it was what he wanted was another. At least I would know. When my heart plodded along on those lonely days I spent without him, I’d know how it got there.

“You sound like you aren’t sure.”

“I’m not.” I swallowed.

“Jake, what’s wrong?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“It’s... complicated,” he said with a puff, raking his fingers through his hair. I couldn’t make myself sit in one of the empty chairs in front of us. Instead, I leaned absently against the other rail, ready to flip off the edge like a scuba diver off a boat. I was such a goddamn coward. I’d run from him before, but now I was keenly aware of what it was like to be without him. “There’s just been a lot going on lately with work, and the house...”

“And Nessie?” He closed his eyes.

“Yeah.” I waited. Nothing.

“Jake, about the other day,” I blurted out. His eyes popped open, and he looked at me, his brow furrowed. “I shouldn’t have dropped in on you like that. I wasn’t thinking. I should have called. I just drove over there without considering that you might have plans. I didn’t mean to upset her. I was just so excited, and you were the first person I wanted to tell. I really am happy for you, and I would never want to come between you, so if you need me to back off I--”

“--We broke up.” 

His soft voice somehow cut through my babbling like butter. My heart dropped. Guilt and shame and loathing, all at once. His knuckles were nearly white around the railing, and he would only look straight ahead through the kitchen window.

“Oh, Jake,” I croaked. “I’m so sorry.” A finger curled on the monkey’s paw.

“No, Bells. It’s--” He cursed under his breath, covering his face with one of his enormous hands. “You don’t understand. You didn’t--God, I wanted to do this better. Smoother.” With a sharp inhale, he turned and looked at me with an agonizing intensity that I hadn’t seen in years. The lump in my throat swelled. 

The front door cracked open, and Charlie poked his head outside, making us both jump.

“Hey Jacob, the DVR is acting up and we can’t get to play.” And just like that, it was gone, replaced by a weary nod as he rose to attend to their technical difficulties. He gave me a quick look over the shoulder before disappearing into the living room.

No, I was not going to cry. I was going to keep it together, at least until he and Billy went home. Then I was allowed to go upstairs and spend the night heaving into my pillow. I carefully dabbed at the corners of my eyes with my sleeve, grateful that the sun was past setting and the dark was about to overtake me. 

Now what? Do I sit here and wait? As the minutes passed, whatever was left of my courage evaporated, and I crept back inside. I knew what he was going to say. I didn’t need to hear it out loud.

“What?”

I entered the living room to find Jake on his feet, his jaw clenched and eyes burning in stark contrast to Dad and Billy, who were frozen in bewilderment. One sharp look from him hit me like a bullet between the eyes. Disgust, or something close to it. I searched Charlie’s face for answers, but there was no explanation. A short, humorless laugh punctured the air.

“Of course.”.

He brushed past me and out the door, leaving behind the loudest silence I’d ever heard. My short legs struggled to catch up as I gave chase, calling after him in pleading gasps. There was no answer. The driver door slammed shut and his SUV’s massive engine roared to life as I watched helplessly from the front steps. Alright, now I was allowed to heave.

Tears streaming down my face, I flew back into the house. They had been watching from the window. 

“Bella, I’m sorry. I--” Billy began, but Charlie cut him off.

“No, this is my fault.”

“What happened?” My voice was cracking so badly that the words were barely distinguishable. My father heaved a heavy sigh and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Billy saw the flowers--,” he said, full of hesitation. 

No.

“--And I asked how your couple’s therapy was going,” Billy finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you like this story, please leave your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> EDIT: One of my friends found my FFN/Ao3 account, so if I never finish this fic, it's because I've gone into witness protection


	9. Lost

I was ready to strangle them both. For a brief moment, the horror of Jacob’s sudden exit was replaced by blind fury.

“You told Billy? How could you?” I snapped. “I told you I didn’t want anyone to know!” Dad flinched, but I didn’t care how penitent he was.

“I’m sorry. It just slipped out. You had me so worried there for a while and I needed someone to talk to about it.”

“That must be nice to have.” I was having trouble imagining how this evening could have gotten worse. At least nobody’s head was on fire. That’s when it all gave way to tears.

“Let me talk to him,” Billy said. They both looked miserable, but worse was the glint of pity in Dad’s eye. I was so sick of everyone I could scream. No matter how much I tried to do the right thing, everyone seemed completely unable to meet me halfway.

“No thank you,” I sniffed irritably. I turned to head upstairs, too overwhelmed this betrayal to stand there another minute. But then I stopped. “In answer to your question Billy, therapy was great. I had a major breakthrough, so that was my last session. Not that any of it matters now.”

I wrenched the blankets over my head and hoped for a meteor to land on me while I slept. I should have never let Edward guilt me into this in the first place, especially when I already knew that it was over. I wasn’t convinced that the good that came of it was going to be a net positive. His girlfriend dumped him because of me, and now he thought I picked Edward over him for the second time, in spite of all Edward’s crimes coming to light. The newly formed trust between us was always going to be fragile, but the fact that he jumped to this conclusion so easily is what really stung. I hoped he had a little more faith in me than that.

Most of the morning was spent in bed, procrastinating with everything except driving myself crazy. The way he looked at me was seared into my brain, overshadowing everything else. When I started peeling back the layers, setting aside the obvious, what I saw etched across his face was hurt. Betrayal. Jake always had a temper, not that you would be able tell just by meeting him. It was always there, buried deep beneath his easy-going manner, but after losing his mother, it began to bubble much closer to the surface. My instinct was to grab hold of him and make him listen. Even now, I knew better than to try when he was in such a state. 

Me: Jake it’s not what you think

Me: Call me

Me : Jake 

Me : Come on

Me : Please talk to me

I didn’t know what to say to Charlie, and his attempts at conversation were confined to the basics of our daily life together, mainly work and dinner. I wanted to forgive him, and god knows I couldn’t blame him for needing to confide in someone. The ramifications were definitely not proportional to the crime, and yet here we were. Adding insult to injury was the second bouquet that arrived on our doorstep. And another the next day. And another. All accompanied by the same lame overtures as before. His persistence was a mystery to me. A maid and an escort would have suited his needs much better than I ever could, but maybe there was a kernel of truth to it. I nearly called him up to demand an end to the pollen-choked remorse moat that was now encircling the living room. No, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t bring myself to care about him. Let him waste his money injecting cash into this little hick town he despised so much.

The beginning of summer school came much faster than I anticipated, and as over-prepared as I probably was, I still didn’t think I was ready. It wasn’t the basic mechanics of the job that had me losing sleep. It was what was riding on it. Everything about my situation was precarious. I was making steps toward cobbling something together that might eventually resemble a life, but I still kept falling back. It was easier to let myself micromanage the day ahead than think about Jacob.

I did not walk into the school that morning with any ideas about becoming the Ms. Frizzle of high school English literature. But I still felt like I had something to prove. The place still smelled the same, like disinfectant, plastic, and musty books. It looked the same, save a newer coat of paint slapped atop the old one, which was possibly the only thing still holding the place together. As I wandered the halls among the summer students, I noticed how much younger high school kids looked than I remembered. They were letting twelve year olds drive now? More unnecessary and borderline mean reminders from the universe that I was old.

Ten weeks to sprint through Shakespeare, _The Odyssey_ , and Mark Twain. The trick was not to let them know I was new, or anxious, or inexperienced. As I stood at the front of my classroom before fifteen deeply disinterested sophomores, I realized this was going to be easier said than done. I introduced myself and went over the syllabus, and that was when it began. I struggled with the projector, spilled tea on myself, and lost my train of thought too many times, stepping on rake after rake until the sweet release of the final bell. If the kids had been as vicious as some in my graduating class, then I might have cried in class. But they were about as mentally present as I was.

Everything was making me think of Jake. I passed by his old locker from the tenth grade and the lunch tables where we used to sit. My window looked out onto the football field and the bleachers, under which he was nearly busted for smoking weed with two lacrosse kids after a pep rally. I couldn’t get away from it, even though it was going to make me terrible at my job if I didn’t pull myself together. 

When I got home, a large cardboard box was waiting for me in the entryway. I hastily sliced through the tape with my key and popped it open. The remainder of my worldly possessions, finally home. There was no note inside, which came as a relief. After nearly a week bombarding me with flowers with over-wrought messages, it appeared that he finally took a hint. Now he had nothing to hold over me. We owed each other nothing. Finally, I was completely free of Edward Cullen.

“Hey.” Dad emerged from the other room, peering down at the books and CD’s shuffling through my hands as I checked to see that everything was accounted for. “I’m sorry. I meant to take it up to your room before you got home.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. You’d mess your back up again.” He lingered there, silently watching me.

“So...I guess it’s really over then, isn’t it?” I looked up at him, feeling a tiny lump rising in my throat. Is this what closure felt like? Because if it was, I don’t think I would have minded just hating Edward forever. I didn’t want to feel tired and sad all the time, to be followed around by one type of grief or another everywhere I went.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” I laid everything back in place and closed the box. He waited.

“Bella, I’m sorry.” 

“I know you didn’t mean to.” Being mad at Charlie wouldn’t fix anything, and I should have let it go already. The truth always has a way of getting out anyways. “And I’m sorry for blowing up. I’ll apologize to Billy later, too.”

“I know he feels awful about it. Just as you and Jake seemed to be getting close again.” I sighed heavily.

“He and Nessie broke up.” His mustache twitched, and his eyes flickered guiltily towards the living room. He cleared his throat.

“Did he say why?”

“I think he was about to but…then the DVR…” He covered his face with a groan.

“Wow, I was on a roll, wasn’t I?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s my fault and he was about to tell me as much.” Gathering myself and rising to my feet, I pushed the box back against a wall. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. I want to explain, but Jake’s not answering his phone.” 

I surveyed the room, my eyes landing on the flowers gathering in the corner. I was initially oozing with pure contempt, wanting to snatch up each vase one by one and hurl them out a second-story window. It would have been a shame, though. They were admittedly quite pretty, and it wasn’t their fault that my ex sent them. But then I was seized by inspiration. I passed Charlie and picked up the few I could carry with me to the kitchen. The water and vases went to the sink, and I wrapped the stems of each bouquet in newspaper.

“What’s all this for?” he asked as I made my way briskly towards the door.

“I think high it’s time I paid my respects.”

The cemetery on the reservation was as old as the hills. Rusted metal markers dotted most of it, etched with the names and dates of the deceased, some in the rear of the property dating back to the 1850’s. The newer ones were in the front, which is where most of the actual headstones were to be found. Small stone rectangles set neatly flush with the ground, invisible when the grass grew too much. I always liked cemeteries, especially this one. It was almost completely surrounded by forest, private and serene. It came alive in the summer when the wildflowers were in bloom, looking more like a meadow in a Kinkade painting than a graveyard. I couldn’t think of a better place to spend eternity.

The Black’s plot was different than I remembered it, and for a moment, I thought I had the wrong one. In the dead center, which had once held only a marker, was a headstone of smooth pink granite that came up to my knees. It was immaculately kept. A miniature rosebush was planted there, covered in young buds waiting for the sun to assure them that it was safe to come out. They were always her favorite. I placed all my ill-gotten spoils at its base, and sat down on the damp ground.

_Sarah Black_

_Beloved wife, mother, and friend_

_1967-2005_

“Hey, Ms. Sarah. I wanted to come by and say hello.” I let out a long breath.

“Is it weird if I still call you ‘Ms. Sarah’? It feels weird to just call you ‘Sarah’ too, even now that I’m grown up.” There was no transition period for that. I clung to her honorific for years after the accident. It was my own way of keeping her frozen in time with me. “I’m back in Forks now, maybe for good. I’m living with Charlie until I can get my shit together. That part has been hit-or-miss. But I’ve got a car at least, and a temp job that’ll go full time, if I’m lucky.”

I twirled my fingers around a long blade of grass, pondering my less than stellar life choices. Pulling up my knees, I rested my chin in my hand, reading the inscription over and over again.

“I’m single again,” I sighed. “You never got to meet Edward. That’s probably for the better. I don’t know; Maybe you could have talked some sense into me. Jake tried, but you know how stubborn I am. I always have to learn things the hard way. Oh, Jake and I are friends again. Or we were, at least. I’m not sure where we stand now. I want to make things right, but he doesn’t really want to talk to me right now.”

“His birthday is coming up soon, isn’t it? We’ll both be thirty now. I forgot he’s a summer baby. Maybe that’s why he’s so hot.” I snorted, a little mortified by my choice of words. “Sorry, not like that. I meant his body temperature. Well, it’s true the other way, too.” I sighed. “Every day I wonder what could have happened if I never met Edward. We probably would have never had that stupid fight. All this chaos over some terrible boy. Sound familiar?” I suddenly felt a tear sliding down my nose, and a memory came hurling back to the forefront of my mind, something I hadn’t thought about in years.

“It’s funny; I never told you this, but when Jake and I were kids, he made me a pinkie promise that if we were both single when we turned thirty, we’d get married. Funny, right?” I chuckled in spite of myself. “I thought you’d get a kick out of that. He probably doesn’t remember. It was so long ago, after all. Not that it matters. It’s too bad though,” I added, my voice cracking with every syllable. “I always wished you could have been my mom.” The tears were now in free-fall. I tried to dab at them with the sleeve of my shirt, but they were coming in too fast. I hugged my knees around my chest and waited for it to pass. Instead, it got worse. 

“I need you. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. You always knew what to do.” And what to say. A gentle breeze rolled through, jostling the rosebush, making the buds bob up and down as if to nod at me. 

“I know, but that boy of yours has a hard head. And things are more...complicated now.” So much more than I could have imagined just a couple months ago. “I’m in love with him, Sarah. It’s driving me insane.” I sniffed. “Jake and I were always supposed to be together. I know you all thought so. I just wish it didn’t take so long for me to figure it out.”

There was no way I could keep going like this. All this hopeless want had me on the verge of crashing and burning, and I’d be tempted to let the flames take me. But clouds were gathering on the horizon, purple and heavy and ready to burst. I rose to my feet, slapping the dirt and grass from my pants, though it did nothing to make me look less disheveled. She was right, of course. She always was.

I crept into the old garage through the open door, not knowing why I bothered when he likely heard my truck sputtering to a stop in the driveway. He was rifling through old boxes on the shelf. I knew he could sense my presence, but was choosing not to acknowledge me. Too many years of trying to sneak up on him as children taught me that while I might be built for it, stealth is not my forte. I finally got tired of waiting.

“Freezing each other out has never worked for us, Jake. It’s only ever made things worse.”

“I’m not freezing you out.” 

“I’m getting frostbite just standing here.”

“I didn’t have anything to say,” he replied flatly, not looking up from his task. I sighed heavily, gazing up at the weathered roof. Maybe getting straight to the point wasn’t the best strategy.

“I went to see your mom today.” He stilled a moment before his hands started moving again. He still didn’t look at me, but I could see some of the stiffness in his back had subsided. “It looks really beautiful.”

“Thanks.” A new undercurrent of tension was trying to hold his voice steady. “The twins helped me pick it out.”

“She would have liked it.” He inhaled sharply, and his fumbling ceased, leaning on his hands against the edge of the workbench in front of him.

“Fifteen years. Half of my entire life. I keep waiting for it to get easier, and it never does.” With some hesitation, I journeyed further inside. It looked different in there. Too different. Of all the things that I hoped had changed, Jake’s garage was the only place I wanted to have stayed the same. So many memories sanded thin by time, by the absence of simple things like that moulding couch or our bikes leaning against the wall. Faint whispers of conversation hearts on Valentine’s and summer camp-outs with pizza, flashlights, and scary stories.

“You’re in good company,” I replied. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her.” 

Or how things could have been. She could have nudged me away from Edward in the sagely, knowing way she had about her. It could have been called manipulation if it was ever put to anything but benevolent use. Or perhaps she could have helped to smooth things over between Jake and I. That contrarian streak might not have led me further into Edward’s arms if I had someone to talk to. Someone who had no dog in the fight. Someone to keep me from digging my heels in out of hurt and spite and stupidity.

He peered over his shoulder, gazing up at me for a moment before his eyes dropped again.

“I can’t keep losing people, Bells.”

“You’re not losing anyone.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Unless you’re planning to push me away again.” He whirled around to face me, eyes blazing.

“Me pushing _you_ away?” he scoffed. “‘Again’? As I remember it, you were the one doing the pushing.”

“Because you were being an ass! What was I supposed to do? You punched my boyfriend, for Christ's sake.”

“And I’d do it again. He was a creep then, and he’s a creep now.”

“Not the point! You didn’t make it easy for me, Jake. Maybe if you had just--” My mouth snapped shut. Now was the absolute wrong time to start dredging up old, petty nonsense. His eyes widened in confusion, looking me dead in the face.

“What?” I shook my head.

“Nothing.” My palm slid over my face. “Look, I didn’t come here to fight. I wanted to talk. What were you going to tell the other night?”

“It’s not important.”

“It obviously is. You know, I used to think you were an open book. Now I realize you’re only an open book when it’s not important.” His face hardened, his fingers flexing at his side.

“Just tell me one thing: Are you still with him?”

“No.” I didn’t want to lay this all out, all my worrying, my bad decisions, my inherently flawed thought processes. The fact that it happened at all was embarrassing enough on its own. ”I got talked into going to therapy, but I knew it wasn’t going to work, and I was right. He’s gone for good now. You would have known that already if you hadn’t stormed out without letting me get a word in.“ His chest fell as he loosed a heavy breath. 

“Why did you bother with it, then?”

“Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The sunk cost fallacy is more persuasive than you’d think. I don’t know; maybe I didn’t think I could hack it on my own.”

“Of course you can. I told you you could.”

“I know that now.”

“You could have known that then.” He pressed his lips together, watching me fidget. 

“Go on,” I urged. “Say ‘I told you so.’ I’m sure you’ve been wanting to say it for years.” The corner of his mouth turned in an annoyed frown. “You have my express permission. Consequence-free. I’ll sign a waiver if you want.”

“I did once. But I wanted it to be before things got _that_ bad. Before he managed to screw with your head so much that you actually believed the things you used to say about yourself. It was so goddamn frustrating to watch. Why didn’t you believe me when I told you that you were pretty, or funny, or talented?” A flush swept up my neck to my face. “Why did you immediately believe a couple of assholes who treated you like shit?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. The black abyss of his eyes gave away the pain he still carried with him. One answer was that the inside of my skull is a terrible place to be, one that became harder and harder to let him into the older we got. The other was that I never doubted that he was sincere, only that he was correct. I bit my lip.

“I think...It’s a bit like when your mother tells you you’re smart or beautiful--well, _your_ mother, anyways,” I corrected bitterly. “Sometimes it’s easier to believe the evidence in front of you than a biased review. And don’t try to tell me you aren’t biased.”

“Maybe I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” After another moment to think on it, I had something better. Or worse.

“Nobody ever looked at me like that. I wasted so much time bending over backwards to get a guy to want me that when one finally did, I was too afraid to let go, even when I knew I needed to. The funny thing is, he never felt the need to say it; I already believed that nobody else would want me.”

Jacob shoved away from the bench, rising straight and tall in front of me, and I froze. It wasn’t anger, exactly. He worked his jaw in a remarkably similar way, the way he learned to keep his mouth shut when he was itching to mouth off after one too many trips to the principal’s office.

“‘Nobody nobody nobody,’” he muttered harshly. Even as he towered over me, I couldn’t move. What I wanted more than anything was to know what I said to make his face harden so suddenly. And then, when he drew closer, his eyes began to soften, unlike his knuckles. “When did I stop being ‘somebody,’ Bells? What was wrong with me?” His voice was low, steady, controlled, as if something inside him would slip and fall if he wasn’t diligent. He seemed to shrink in front of me, as if the clock was winding back the years until a stricken boy stood in front of me. “Why wasn’t I good enough?”

My jaw fell open. I did it again, didn’t I? Somehow already so certain that Jacob would be there that I almost discounted his existence completely. But he couldn’t have known that things were different now, how badly I wanted him and how much I wished that I could go back and change everything. To never make him feel like an afterthought when he meant so much more to me than even I knew.

“Jake, you know I’ve never meant it like that--” 

“--Then how did you mean it?” I swallowed, searching for the right words and coming up short, as always.

“You’ve never not been ‘good enough.’ You’ve always been amazing. I was just young and not paying attention. I never meant to hurt you, Jake. I don’t blame you for hating my guts after how I acted.” I caught something in his eye. It was a look of realization that came and went in a fraction of a second. He was close now, so close that I could almost feel the heat emanating from his chest. A ragged inhale carried over the stillness of the garage.

“I’ve never hated you.”

“No?” He shook his head.

“Bells, I have loved you every single day for twenty years. I don’t think there’s anything that anyone could do to change that.”

I choked. Tears began to surge in my eyes. He looked taken aback, his brow writ with confusion as he stepped backwards onto his heel. I felt like an absolute moron. My hand clapped over my eyes to shield me from my own embarrassment, as if anything could. This was wrong. This wasn’t how you were supposed to act when a man tells you he loves you, especially not Jacob.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I hissed out a few more frustrated tears. When I looked at him again, he was no longer so alarmed, but I could see the faintest hint of color in his cheeks.

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked quietly, looking away. 

“It would have made a huge difference!”

He merely blinked, gawking at me like an idiot. That’s what we were; A pair of complete and total idiots. Only further confirmation that we were made for each other. I sniffed and grabbed the hem of this black t-shirt before leaning in to rest my forehead against his chest. He flinched at the sudden contact. When I didn’t move, and those stray tears bled into the fabric, he began to coil his arms around me.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m mad!” My fist pounded on his chest.

“At who?”

“At you!” I squeaked, my lips pressed into a hard line. “And me.” 

“Why?”

“Because I love you, you jerk!”

He carefully lifted my chin to look at me, his eyes furiously searching mine to confirm that he’d heard me correctly. Disbelief, almost suspicion, until I raised my hand to his cheek, softly brushing the dark silk of his skin with the pad of my thumb, and nodded in affirmation. And then, without another word, his mouth was on mine. 

It was explosive. So much pent up desire was threatening to go up in flames, the friction of our lips and hands like a match against the box. One hand wound in his shaggy black hair, the other in the belt loop of his faded jeans, a silent demand that he stay put until I was done with him, a time that may never come. Even I was shocked by how needy it made me, how closely my sighs came to crossing the border into something obscene. I wasn’t alone. A low moan rumbled in his chest as the kiss grew deeper. My head swam. All sense of control was starting to slip from my fingers, and even I was surprised by the sheer intensity of it. 

The world suddenly felt sharper, brighter, clear and focused. The closest I had ever come to this feeling, this sudden surge of lust for being alive that was coursing through my veins, was the day Jacob finally convinced him to dive off the cliffs of La Push. Even as I prepared to plunge downwards into dark waters, praying I would dodge rocks and undertow, knowing he was waiting for me at the bottom was enough. His bright grin, full of mischief and excitement, the sound of his voice calling up to me, spurred me to take a running start off the jagged edge. Whatever came to pass, there was always a safe place for me, and it was by his side. I never felt that way again, until now.

Our lips parted too soon. His forehead rested against mine, the both of us flushed and breathless as if we’d just broken the surface of the water.

“Tell me again,” he whispered, his eyes shut in reverent anticipation. 

“I love you.”

The fingertips that had just been stroking the curve of my jaw took me again, eagerly crashing us back together. Before I knew it, my back was against the edge of the workbench, and I was either going to be crushed against it or melt into him until we fused into a single entity. Tools and unknown junk clattered carelessly to the floor as our passion became frenzied and unstable. I came perilously close to clawing the thin fabric off of him, briefly debating whether my nails could tear it or if I would be forced to yank it over his head. Every nerve in my body was begging me to have him right here, right now, against the dusty backdrop of our shared childhood. I wanted to kiss ever bare inch of his skin and taste my name on his tongue. I didn’t know if I could have stopped myself even if I wanted to.

He pulled away for a moment, dragging a muffled whine out of me. His hands shook as they held me tightly against his chest and gulped for air. My own breath seemed to be stolen from my lungs. When he reached up to cup my face, gently tilting my face to look into the faceted obsidian gazing down at me, I was sure that I wouldn’t be catching it again any time soon.

“Marry me, Bells.” My heart stopped and my jaw dropped. A sound, perhaps a laugh, or a gasp, or maybe just the sound of my delirious state, escaped my throat. 

“Jake…are you serious?” 

“As a heart attack,” he said in a low murmur, his eyes still fixed on mine. “My birthday is next month,” he continued, a wry smile creeping onto his lips. “We’re about to hit the deadline.” 

After all this time, he remembered something so sweet and silly as a childhood marriage pact. A gesture made to comfort a gawky, weeping teenage girl, but he meant it from the start. It was true then; Jacob had loved me from the start, long before I believed I deserved it. Before I learned how to love myself. 

He was the one. He always had been. The only one I could trust with my whole heart. The one who had my back even when I didn’t have my own. Kind. Gorgeous. Patient. Stubborn. Impulsive. Smart-mouthed and hot-headed and absolutely perfect.

I giggled, stroking his hair as the first few trickles of the impending downpour began tapping on the roof.

“A pinky-promise is sacred, Jake. I wouldn’t dare break it.”

* * *

I got married today.

I was woken up at the crack by my two new sisters, who had gleefully commandeered the beautification process after learning that I had no plans to procure professional intervention. As much as I hated feeling their blazing hair instruments so precariously close to my skin and getting poked in the eye with a mascara wand, I was immensely grateful for their help. Rachel and Rebecca knew better than to try to convince me to wear false eyelashes or stilettos, and they accepted my prohibition on sparkles and anything dessert-scented, though not without rolling their eyes at me on more than one occasion.

Charlie, despite being “cool” for a man his age, was still a bit of a traditionalist, and was stuck on the notion that the bride’s father should pay for everything, even though he barely had two nickels to rub together. Reluctantly, he finally agreed to only pay for my dress, a simple thing of tulle-wrapped satin with a deep v-neck bodice and a skirt that came to the floor, though short enough that I wasn’t at risk of stepping on it. 

Most unexpected was how I felt. If my past was anything to go on, I should have been nail-bitingly anxious for days. The planning, the attention, the spectacle, the contingencies. It all should have kept me up at night, but it didn’t. The only disturbances to my sleep or my days were excitement, a momentary fluttering in my chest every time I remembered what was happening on Saturday. As we stepped onto the pebbled path, Charlie offered his assurances that he would not let me fall. With a deep breath, he led me forward into the freshly-planted garden of what was about to be my house.

It didn’t stop me from turning scarlet as we wound through pink roses and shrubs to the lawn where everyone was seated. It could have been the heat, or it could have been from my first glimpse of Jacob, who was waiting for me at the end, grinning like a fool. 

From the kiss onwards, everything was a blur punctuated by cake and dancing and tearful toasts from our fathers. By the time darkness had settled over Forks, it was just the two of us, half dead and ready to collapse from an entire day of celebrating. I was thankful we weren’t leaving for New York until tomorrow. There was only one thing left to do.

In the span of half a second, my knees were knocked out from under me and I landed backwards into Jake’s arms with a squeak. I was still getting used to being carried.

“Did you think I was going to drop you?”

“No, I just thought you knew better than to startle me.”

“Where would the fun be in that?”

“We’re not even married a whole day and you’re already trying to get yourself in trouble.” I clucked my tongue. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I can think of a couple things.”

“You’ll need to get me inside first.” He rolled his eyes.

“Killjoy.”

After a few broad steps, we were across the threshold, and he carefully placed me back on my bare feet, but his hands never left my waist. It was astonishing; A glow seemed to emanate from every corner of every room, warm and golden and soft, illuminating everything as I took it all in for the first time. Taking his hand, I padded along the smooth floors to discover my grandmother’s antiques tucked seamlessly among new rugs and bookshelves and overstuffed chairs. Smiling photographs of our parents, our first day of school, birthdays, a family picnic, all watching us go by from their home on the walls. It wasn’t just the transformation from the ramshackle house he bought, but the way everything fit together, the old and the new. Too beautiful to be real. Like something out of a dream.

“What do you think?” he asked. The anticipation in his voice was barely concealed.

“I think you outdid yourself. And that you’ve been reading my diary.” A hint of relief in his sigh, as if there was a chance I wasn’t going to like it.

“I tried, but it was just drawings of ponies and ‘Mrs. Orlando Bloom’ written over and over again in glitter gel pen.” I snorted and he drew me back into his arms.

“So you like it?”

“I love it, Jake. It’s absolutely perfect."

“All for you, Bells.” He kissed my knuckles, then my cheek, my nose, and finally my lips. The sensation of his long eyelashes tickling my skin like feathers made me giggle.

It was ours. Something beautiful at the end of a long and dusty road littered with bumps and potholes and the occasional roadkill. Finally, I decided to let go of my failings and my regrets, to forgive wherever I could. That was all over now. This was the beginning of a new life and a new chapter for Jake and Bells.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Black.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I wasn't sure if this was going to be the last chapter of this story, but then they decided that it was, so I was overruled.
> 
> If you liked it, please validate my existence in the comments.
> 
> Thanks again, everyone! I'll see you in the next project I decide to torture myself with.


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